Central America
Former president of Honduras found guilty of drug trafficking by U.S. justice
The prosecution, alleging that the former president created a narco-state during his presidency (2014-2022), accused him of conspiring to traffic drugs to the United States, as well as conspiring to traffic arms, offenses that carry potential life sentences.
Former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, was declared guilty of drug trafficking and arms trafficking by a federal jury in New York on Friday, concluding a landmark trial that could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.
On its second day of deliberations, the 12-member jury announced its unanimous verdict shortly before 13:30 local time, finding Hernández guilty on all three charges brought by the prosecution.
“I am innocent, tell the world, I love you,” Hernández said as he left the court, addressing his family, including two sisters-in-law, and the three generals who came to testify on his behalf in this trial.
Flanked by his lawyers, moments before Judge Kevin Castel called the parties to hear the verdict, 55-year-old Hernández appeared to be praying.
Afterwards, he reacted to the verdict by shaking his head in disbelief as the jury spokesperson responded to each of the judge’s questions to establish his guilt.
The prosecution, asserting that the former president created a narco-state during his presidency (2014-2022), accused him of conspiring to traffic drugs to the United States, as well as conspiring to traffic arms, offenses that carry potential life sentences.
The judge is yet to announce the former president’s sentence in the coming weeks or months.
According to the U.S. prosecution, Hernández participated in and protected a network that sent over 500 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2004 and 2022, while he was a congressman, president of the Congress, and later president of the Republic. In exchange, he allegedly received millions of dollars from cartels, including Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.
Extradited in April 2022 to the United States, three months after handing over the presidency to leftist successor Xiomara Castro, the convicted individual is known for the infamous phrase “We are going to put the drugs in their noses (to the Americans) and they won’t even notice,” according to a witness.
Asked by AFP, defense attorney Renato Stabile, with tears in his eyes, said that “obviously the verdict is harsh, but mentally, he is very strong.”
This staunch ally of Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021) once boasted about Washington’s praise for his government’s efforts in the fight against drug trafficking.
Prosecutor Jacob H. Gutwillig reminded the jury that while the accused publicly promoted laws against drug trafficking and the extradition of drug lords to the United States, he also met with U.S. officials behind closed doors. However, “none of this undoes what the accused did behind closed doors.”
“He is a drug trafficker,” Gutwillig concluded.
Since 2014, Honduras has extradited 38 people accused of drug trafficking to the United States. Others surrendered to U.S. authorities or were arrested outside the country.
Former police chief Juan Carlos “Tigre” Bonilla and former police officer Mauricio Hernández, who were to be tried with the former president, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking a few days before the trial began. Their sentences will be announced in the coming months.
Many of the dozen witnesses presented by the prosecution highlighted the corruption and close ties between politics and drug trafficking.
“The political elite, which is also the economic elite, has operated in complete impunity” over the past 15 years, since the 2009 coup, emboldened by “the support it received from foreign governments despite knowing that it was heavily involved in drug trafficking,” says American activist Karen Spring of the Honduras Solidarity Network to AFP.
“All state institutions are heavily penetrated by drug trafficking, particularly the police and the military,” she asserts.
Extradited in April 2022, three months after leaving office, the former president will follow in the footsteps of his brother Tony Hernández and Geovanny Fuentes, a close associate of his brother, who are serving life sentences in the United States, as well as Fabio Lobo, son of former President Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), and lawmaker Fredy Renán Nájera, all convicted of drug trafficking.
Central America
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
The Government of Mexico announced on Tuesday that it has strengthened coordination with Guatemala following an armed confrontation in the community of Agua Zarca, in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango department, where a soldier was wounded in an attack attributed to organized-crime groups operating on both sides of the border.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch, confirmed that Mexico is exchanging information with Guatemalan authorities and that Mexican Army units have been deployed along the border to reinforce surveillance and assist in reconnaissance operations.
The attack, Guatemala’s Defense Ministry stated, reflects the “criminal dynamics” dominating that border region, where different groups compete for drug and arms trafficking routes.
According to Guatemala’s Defense Ministry, the clash left a soldier wounded in the leg after suspected criminals crossed from Mexico and opened fire. The wounded soldier is reportedly in stable condition. Authorities also seized high-caliber weapons, explosives, tactical gear and drones, which were handed over for forensic analysis.
Mexican Defense Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo announced that a coordinated plan of operations will be launched involving both Mexican and Guatemalan forces along the border to counter these criminal networks.
Harfuch emphasized that the violence is not isolated but symptomatic of the ongoing struggle between criminal organizations for territorial control, and reiterated Mexico’s commitment to bilateral security cooperation and its intention to strengthen institutional presence in vulnerable border zones.
Central America
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
The National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) stated that the ruling party Libre’s request to annul the general elections is not supported by law in the absence of evidence of fraud, and that such a move puts democracy at risk. The country has yet to learn who its next president will be, following the elections held on November 30.
In a press release, the university said that “a general annulment, lacking structural proof of fraud, constitutes a direct violation of the principle of preserving electoral acts and of the legal certainty of the democratic system.”
It further noted that electoral annulment “is a legal institution of strictly exceptional and restrictive nature, and a last resort, whose application is constitutionally legitimate only when there is full, objective, direct, and decisive proof of the structural legal destruction of the popular will.”
“Annulment is not an ordinary mechanism for political challenges, nor an instrument to correct electoral defeats, but an institutional safeguard intended exclusively to protect the sovereign people when their will has been replaced through proven structural fraud,” the statement continued.
UNAH emphasized that annulling the elections without verified evidence of fraud “would amount, in constitutional terms, to an indirect disregard of popular sovereignty, altering the very essence of the democratic rule of law.”
Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla said on X that he is prepared to compare his tally sheets with those of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Honduras. Since Friday, Nasralla has fallen behind his opponent Nasry Asfura of the National Party.
Central America
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
The director of the National Anticorruption Council (CNA), Gabriela Castellanos, stated on social media that the Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) did not fail due to a lack of messaging but because of a “lack of substance.”
“It wasn’t socialism; it was a populist caricature without theory, coherence, or the ability to translate into solutions for the everyday lives of the Honduran people,” Castellanos said.
“The defeat of Libre cannot be explained solely in electoral terms. It reflects a deeper rupture: the gap between a narrative that tried to call itself ‘socialist’ and a citizenry that does not live off ideological abstractions but off concrete urgencies,” she added.
“In Honduras, a discourse grounded in abstract concepts can never replace the urgent conversation about prices, jobs, security, and access to basic needs. That inability to turn theory into solutions widened the gap that ultimately fractured its candidacy,” she noted.
While the right continues to gain votes following the elections, Libre’s presidential candidate, Rixi Moncada, has secured only 19.11% of public support, placing her in third position. “Socialism, in its rigorous sense, is not about activist shouting or improvised directives. It is critical thinking, structural analysis, and a deep understanding of how society works. Libre did not offer that. It offered an impoverished version — an ‘occasional socialism,’ reduced to recycled slogans, without method, without bread, and without the people,” Castellanos said in response to the party’s reaction over the weekend.
“The Honduran people rejected an empty discourse,” she concluded.
Mexico and Guatemala launch joint security operation after Agua Zarca border attack
Honduran University: Nullifying elections without proof of fraud undermines popular sovereignty
CNA director says Libre’s defeat stems from “lack of substance,” not messaging
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