The trial in New York of Juan Orlando Hernández entered a decisive phase this Friday with the statements of Fabio Lobo, son of his predecessor Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo in the presidency of Honduras, who said he had bribed the former president with money from drug trafficking.
Sentenced to 24 years in prison in the United States also for drug trafficking, Fabio Lobo assured that he had paid $450,000 for the presidential campaign in the 2013 elections of Juan Orlando Hernández, accused of creating a narco-state in Honduras during his two terms (2014-2022). ). ) protecting drug and weapons trafficking.
The first payment of $200,000 was made to the sister of the former president (2014-2022) Hilda Hernández, while the second, of $250,000, was made personally to the candidate at his Olancho home, he indicated.
The money was in “a backpack, he showed her the contents and put it in a truck,” he explained.
Money in exchange for “logistical information”
In exchange, he asked for help to obtain government contracts for his companies and those of his drug trafficker friends and “logistical information” for drug trafficking, a way of operating in which the former drug traffickers who have testified in the two weeks of trial have agreed. . .
Fabio Lobo also said that his father had received “contributions” from the Cachiros, a cartel that operated in northern Honduras, a change of “protection” so that they would not be extradited, but despite the insistence of Hernández’s defense, he did not revealed neither the amount of the payments nor the involvement of Pepe Lobo, president of Honduras from 2010 to 2014, with drug trafficking.
Lobo acknowledged that after being detained in 2015 in Haiti “I did not tell the American judge” anything about said bribes. “Did you lie to the judge?” asked Hernández’s lawyer, Raymond Colon.
“I minimized my participation to obtain a sentence less than 24 years,” he responded.
Within the framework of his cooperation with the prosecution in exchange for a remission of the sentence, he spoke about it in January 2023, this 51-year-old former judge and lawyer admitted, visibly upset by the lawyer’s insistence.
Hang up on ex-president Lobo
However, he specified that his father “had no involvement in his private affairs,” although he acknowledged that “I and my father are currently estranged.”
Instead, he did not miss the opportunity to throw dirt on the accused, whom he met in 2002. “He knows perfectly” the relationship he had with him, he said annoyed.
The day before, he said that Hernández had told him that he had “received contributions from some members of the Sinaloa cartel” of the powerful Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.
Dressed in his canary yellow prison jumpsuit and his ankles in shackles, the prosecution’s witness worked with the Los Cachiros cartel that operated mainly in northern Honduras and with Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, he acknowledged.
Judge Kevin Castel hopes that on Monday he can conclude the questioning of witnesses before the jury meets to define the fate of the former president. It is not yet clear whether Hernandez will take the stand to defend himself.
“This case is important for the defendant, for the prosecution and for the United States judicial system itself,” the judge told the jury this Friday.
If found guilty of the three charges against him – drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons trafficking and possession – for helping to send 500 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2004 and 2022, Hernández could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.
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