Juan Orlando Hernandez, member of Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry Asfura’s social gathering, serving US drug trafficking sentence.
Revealed On 28 Nov 2025
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says he’ll pardon the previous chief of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, simply days earlier than the Central American nation’s intently contested presidential election.
The announcement on Friday got here two days earlier than Honduras’s vote, wherein Trump has endorsed conservative Nationwide Social gathering candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura.
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Hernandez was the social gathering’s final profitable presidential candidate and had served as president from 2014 to 2022. Final 12 months, he was sentenced to 45 years in jail within the US after being extradited from Honduras on costs of drug trafficking.
In a submit on Fact Social, Trump mentioned that Hernandez has been “handled very harshly and unfairly”. He cited “many individuals that I significantly respect”.
Trump additionally once more threw his assist behind Asfura, who’s going through 4 opponents within the scandal-plagued race. No clear frontrunner has but emerged.
He added {that a} loss for Asfura would result in a rupture in US assist for the nation of about 11 million, echoing the same risk he made in assist of Javier Milei earlier than Argentina’s presidential election in October.
“If he doesn’t win, the USA won’t be throwing good cash after unhealthy, as a result of a flawed Chief can solely carry catastrophic outcomes to a rustic, regardless of which nation it’s,” Trump wrote.
The US president and several other right-wing figures have beforehand accused Rixi Moncada, the candidate for outgoing President Xiomara Castro’s left-leaning LIBRE social gathering, in addition to Salvador Nasralla, of the centre-right Liberal Social gathering, of being within the pocket of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Each candidates have rejected the claims, which come as Trump has elevated strain in opposition to Maduro. That has included surging US navy belongings to the area and floating doable land operations.
Drug trafficking conviction
Regardless of Trump’s statements, the choice to pardon Hernandez sits uncomfortably along with his administration’s pledges to focus on drug cartels and narcotic smuggling into the US.
That has included designating a number of cartels as “overseas terrorist organisations” and launching strikes on alleged drug smugglers in worldwide waters. Rights teams have mentioned the assaults are tantamount to extrajudicial killings and sure violate each home and worldwide regulation.
Throughout his trial, prosecutors accused Hernandez of working with highly effective cartels to smuggle greater than 400 tonnes of cocaine en path to the US. That included ties to the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel, one of many legal teams designated by the Trump administration as “terrorists”.
Hernandez allegedly relied on hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in cartel bribes to gasoline his political rise.
On the time of his sentencing, former US Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland mentioned Hernandez used his presidency “to function the nation as a narco-state the place violent drug traffickers have been allowed to function with digital impunity, and the folks of Honduras and the USA have been pressured to endure the implications.”
