Honduras ex-President Hernandez faces long prison term after US drug conviction

26/6/2024 18:34

        Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez will be ordered to spend decades in prison when a U.S. judge sentences him later on Wednesday for his conviction on drug and firearm offenses.
        
        Hernandez, 55, faces a mandatory minimum 40-year prison sentence after a Manhattan jury found he accepted millions of dollars in bribes to protect U.S.-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat.
        
        Federal prosecutors have urged U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel to sentence Hernandez to life in prison, to send a message to other traffickers and their accomplices in government.
        
        "Without corrupt politicians like the defendant, the kind of large-scale, international drug trafficking at issue in this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, is difficult if not impossible," prosecutors wrote on Monday.
        
        Hernandez led Honduras, a U.S. ally in Central America, from 2014 to 2022.