The United States federal government has requested the arrest and extradition of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez after he allegedly took money from drug cartels.
American authorities sent the extradition request directly to the Honduran Foreign Ministry on Monday, said a ministry official. Hours after receiving the letter, police officers immediately surrounded the former Honduran president's home.
Arrest and Extradition
Hernandez left office in January after his entire political party was ousted in elections last year. However, whether or not the former president will be extradited to the United States is not yet a guarantee.
The Honduran Supreme Court, which is packed with loyalists to the former president, is responsible for implementing any extradition request. Last year, one witness said in a federal courtroom in New York that Hernandez bragged that he was "going to stuff the drugs up the gringos' noses, and they're never even going to know it."
Hernandez is facing accusations that have been made in at least two drug-trafficking cases that prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have been pursuing. But the former Honduran president has disputed the allegations in the past, as per the New York Times.
After the request for Hernandez's extradition, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice called an urgent court session scheduled for Tuesday morning. The meeting would be to discuss a potential judge who will consider the extradition request from the U.S. government.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, Nicole Navas, declined to comment regarding the issue. Additionally, the U.S. State Department referred requests for comment to the Justice Department.
NPR reported that Hermes Ramirez, Hernandez's attorney, accused authorities of being unfair to the former Honduran president. He argued that the suspect was inside his Tegucigalpa residence when he was arrested.
Corruption Accusations
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that Hernandez was part of a list of individuals who were allegedly involved in corruption or undermining democracy in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The American official said that the U.S. was advancing transparency and accountability in Central America by making public visa restrictions against Hernandez.
Blinken added that no one was above the law as the former Honduran president was accused of corrupt actions in a Twitter post. In a statement, the official said that the American government had credible media reports tying Hernandez to "significant corruption" by committing or facilitating acts of corruption and narco-trafficking.
Blinken said the former president used the money he got from drug cartels to facilitate political campaigns and further his ambitions. On top of that, Hernandez's brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernandez, was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. judge last year for drug trafficking.
The judge said that the suspect had received millions in bribes that he used to support the ruling party's coffers for elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017. The money was later used to assist his brother and his agenda as the region's president, DW News reported.