US seeks extradition of former Honduran president to Washington

According to the latest reports that cite a US embassy document, the United States is seeking to extradite former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado to Washington on charges related to weapons and a drug-trafficking scheme between 2004 and 2022.

Speculation had been long circulating that the United States was planning to request Hernandez’s extradition when he left office amid accusations that he colluded with drug traffickers.

The US embassy said in the document that Hernandez was part of a scheme that trafficked from Honduras 500,000 kilograms of cocaine received from Venezuela and Colombia to the US.

Honduras’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had said via Twitter that it had notified the country’s Supreme Court that the US embassy had requested the “formal provisional arrest of a Honduran politician” for extradition.

Tens of police officers surrounded Hernandez’s house last night.

Hernandez has said he is ready to collaborate with the national police, hours after authorities surrounded his house.

Hernandez’s lawyer, Felix Avila, told a local TV channel that if a Supreme Court judge orders his client’s arrest, he “has said that if he is allowed, he is willing to surrender voluntarily.”

Honduras’ Supreme Court – which will decide on the extradition request – is due to meet today to name a judge to oversee the case, a judiciary spokesman said.

Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Justice, declined to comment. The US Department of State has also not commented yet.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hernandez was included on a list last year of people accused of corruption or undermining democracy in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“The United States is advancing transparency and accountability in Central America by making public visa restrictions against Honduras’ former president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, on account of corrupt actions,” Blinken wrote on Twitter on February 7. “No one is above the law.”

“Hernandez has engaged in significant corruption by committing or facilitating acts of corruption and narco-trafficking and using the proceeds of illicit activity to facilitate political campaigns,” the US State Department said in a statement.

A US federal witness said Hernandez “received narco-trafficking proceeds as part of his campaign funding”, the statement also said.

Hernandez has denied all charges and claims the accusations are a part of a revenge plot from the same drug lords that his government captured or extradited to the US.

His brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernandez, was sentenced in March 2017 to life imprisonment in the US for drug trafficking.