(CNN) –– This Thursday began the extradition of Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras, to the United States, weeks after the Supreme Court in Tegucigalpa ratified its decision to hand him over to that country and rejected a last appeal filed by the defense.
With a strong security operation of some 800 to 1,000 members of the National Police, Hernández was transferred by helicopter to the Toncontín airport in Tegucigalpa from where he travels under the custody of agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA, for his acronym in English).
In the United States, he is expected to appear in federal court where his arrest will be made official.
Hernández’s wife, Ana García, posted a video of the former president on her Twitter account.
“The truth is a liberating force when it is revealed, it is my prayer, that of my family and that of thousands of Honduran families, so that the truth is revealed and prevails in my case. I am innocent, I have been, and I am treated unfairly by the process,” he said.
“You know that I worked tirelessly to restore peace in Honduras. We gave our maximum effort for our nation, and it is unfortunate that those who turned Honduras into one of the most violent countries on Earth, those villains, now want to be heroes,” Hernández said in the video, whose recording date is unknown.
Last January, the United States asked Honduras to hand over Hernández, who is facing charges related to drug trafficking.
The former president, who has been held in the National Directorate of Special Forces of the National Police since February 15, has pleaded not guilty to all charges on several occasions. He insists that he is not a drug trafficker, and assures that during his eight years in office he helped fight this crime together with US agencies.
TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS – APRIL 21: Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is escorted by members of the Special Police Forces to be extradited to the US to face charges of accepting bribes from drug traffickers at the National Directorate of Special Forces of Honduras on April 21, 2022 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Hernández will be tried for allegedly helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States (Photo by Jorge Cabrera/Getty Images)
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The extradition process of Juan Orlando Hernández
On March 28, the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras upheld Hernández’s extradition, after the defense appealed the ruling of a judge who approved the measure. At that time, Melvin Duarte, spokesman for the Judiciary, explained that the plenary decision was unappealable. A day later, Juan Orlando Hernández’s lawyers filed an amparo appeal to avoid extradition, which the Constitutional Chamber of the Honduran Supreme Court declared inadmissible on April 6.
Just days before, Ana García de Hernández, wife of the former president, published a letter on Twitter which, he assures, the former president wrote in “his own handwriting.” In the letter he reiterates his innocence and says he is “the victim of revenge and a conspiracy.”
In the open letter to the nation that the former president wrote according to his wife, he says that what he is experiencing is “a threat from the cartels, it is an orchestrated trap so that no government will confront them again.” And he added: “I only hope that justice is done, that the right that assists us people and nations is respected.”
US Department of Justice files an indictment
Hernández will be tried for allegedly helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States (Photo by Jorge Cabrera/Getty Images)
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In an indictment unsealed Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) details an alleged conspiracy by former President Hernández to protect and profit from smugglers transporting cocaine through South America and into Mexico. USA.
Hernandez is charged with conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
“As stated in the indictment, Hernández abused his position as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 to operate the country as a narco-state,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference announcing charges this Thursday.
Beginning in 2014, the indictment alleges, Hernandez associated with some of the most violent drug gangs and received millions of dollars from a network that funneled cocaine through Honduras into the U.S. He used the money, the indictment says, to enrich himself. finance their political ascent and subsequently remain in power.
In return, Hernández provided the organizations with police information that helped protect their leaders from criminal investigations, shielded them from extradition to the US, and allowed them to commit acts of violence with virtually no consequence.
Garland said the DOJ’s years-long investigation of drug trafficking organizations has led to “the conviction of numerous Honduran drug traffickers who were responsible for the importation of more than 500,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and dozens of murders abroad.”
“If you think you can hide behind the power of your position, you’re wrong,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said during the news conference.
Hernández was extradited on a US Drug Enforcement Administration plane that took off around 4:20 pm from Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa. The plane is headed for New York City, according to Honduran authorities.
With information from Bertha Ramos, Elvin Sandoval, Marlon Sorto, Juan Carlos Paz, María Plaza and Ana Cucalón, all from CNN en Español, and Hannah Rabinowitz de CNN.
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