As Honduran high court docket clears manner for Juan Orlando Hernandez to face prices in US, specialists say struggle towards corruption continues.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – After a six-week authorized battle carefully watched by Hondurans, the nation’s high court docket has cleared the best way for former President Juan Orlando Hernandez to be tried in america on drug trafficking and weapons prices.
Hondurans had lengthy awaited Hernandez’s extradition and already celebrated within the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, when he was taken into custody in February. Now all that awaits is a aircraft despatched by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which sources informed Univision on Monday can be coming shortly to ship him to New York.
“The choice that the court docket made Monday is the story of an extradition foretold,” mentioned Joaquin Mejia, a lawyer with Honduran analysis group ERIC-SJ and the Honduran Authorized Group for Human Rights (EJDH).
Hernandez, as soon as an in depth US ally within the struggle towards drug trafficking and migration, was first formally signalled to be concerned in drug trafficking throughout his brother Tony Hernandez’s trial in New York in 2019.
In a later trial of convicted Honduran drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, prosecutors alleged Hernandez mentioned he would “shove the medication proper up the noses of the gringos” and used state safety and legislation enforcement to guard drug traffickers. Prosecutors now allege that Hernandez started receiving bribes from drug traffickers way back to 2006.
“The authorities are lastly doing what they need to have finished a very long time in the past: penalise and put behind bars the individuals who have robbed this nation,” mentioned Aaron Hernandez, a 31-year-old Honduran truck driver, after the court docket issued its resolution.
Years of frustration
However not everybody in Honduras feels that manner; supporters of Hernandez gathered exterior the court docket all through the extradition course of to point out their loyalty to the previous president and query what was occurring.
“I don’t like what they're doing to him. He was a superb president. He gave folks meals and helped through the pandemic and gave vaccines,” 35-year-old Karen Garcia informed Al Jazeera in an interview on Tuesday. “If he has one thing to pay for, I feel he ought to do it in his nation,” she mentioned, including that she believes he's harmless.
The ex-president has repeatedly denied drug trafficking allegations as lies invented by his enemies to get again at him. Via a hand-written word shared by his spouse on Monday, he as soon as once more proclaimed his innocence.
Hernandez’s Nationwide Social gathering, which suffered a devastating loss on the voting cubicles final November, additionally defended his innocence after the court docket resolution on Monday. “The previous president Juan Orlando Hernandez has the potential for defending himself there within the US and to have the ability to defend his innocence,” mentioned Tomas Zambrano, a Nationwide Social gathering congressman, in a press release.
However when Hernandez left workplace two months in the past, extradition rumours have been already swirling.
The favored marketing campaign music of Hernandez’s presidential successor, former first girl Xiomara Castro of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) Social gathering, sang of his being despatched to New York to reunite along with his brother Tony. The music has change into a rallying cry for Hondurans annoyed with years of corruption and violence that has brought on many to flee to the US.
“He took away so many alternatives from Hondurans,” mentioned Alexander Interiano, 45, who works in welding and electrical repairs. He criticised Hernandez for spending public cash on his personal safety whereas he claimed to assist poor Hondurans. “He was a hypocrite with Hondurans each time he gave a press convention.”
Corruption battle
The US despatched $461m for “governance” tasks in Honduras from 2014 to 2021, the years that Hernandez was in energy.
Nonetheless, Hernandez himself was a serious impediment to enhancing establishments and combating corruption within the nation, in keeping with Rafael Jerez, a Honduran political analyst and analysis fellow on the Institute for Transnational Legislation on the College of Texas at Austin.
“The anti-corruption struggle suffered a terrific setback as a result of in Honduras it was by no means fought, not less than with Juan Orlando in energy,” Jerez informed Al Jazeera.
Below Hernandez, Honduras invited an internationally backed, anti-corruption fee to the nation however restricted its powers and allowed its mandate to run out in 2020 after its investigations have been linked to Hernandez’s marketing campaign funds. Congress additionally handed a sequence of legal guidelines to hinder corruption investigations, which the present administration is now working to undo.
By 2021, the final 12 months Hernandez was in energy, Honduras ranked within the backside 15 p.c of nations by way of corruption, in keeping with Transparency Worldwide.
Now, as Castro has promised to rid the federal government of corruption and enhance the standard of life for Hondurans, many see Hernandez’s extradition as solely step one of a bigger battle to deal with corruption.
“In Honduras, Hernandez by no means confronted any formal accusations,” mentioned Jerez. “This highlights how drug trafficking has permeated the establishments, the political events. That’s why it’s vital to do not forget that he’s leaving, however a construction stays within the nation.”
Jerez known as for judicial reforms and the strengthening of the general public prosecutor’s workplace to enhance the justice system inside Honduras. Within the meantime, different extradition requests, not less than 32 in keeping with the Supreme Court docket, are nonetheless ready to be carried out.
“We’re in a second to determine these authoritarian and felony enclaves that Juan Orlando Hernandez created and are nonetheless a part of the state,” mentioned the lawyer, Mejia, “to have the ability to dismantle them and begin a means of democratisation and cleansing up of the nation.”
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