Honduras seizes assets of ex-president awaiting US extradition

Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez is needed within the US on drug trafficking and weapons costs, which he denies.

Police cars in street
Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez Hernandez was arrested in mid-February, a day after the US requested his extradition [File: Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters]

Honduran authorities have seized the properties, monetary holdings and different belongings belonging to former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who's dealing with extradition to the USA to face drug trafficking and weapons costs.

The Ministry of Public Affairs mentioned in a assertion on Friday that following an investigation into Hernandez’s household belongings, authorities “executed operations to safe and seize materials and immaterial belongings, industrial companies and monetary merchandise linked to the household nucleus”.

Ministry spokesman Yuri Mora instructed the AFP information company that 33 properties, eight industrial companies, 16 autos and a number of other monetary merchandise had been seized.

The transfer comes after Hernandez, who left workplace in January after eight years in energy and was as soon as a key US ally in its battle in opposition to drug trafficking, was arrested in mid-February, a day after Washington requested his extradition.

Juan Orlando Hernandez during his arrest
Police arrested Juan Orlando Hernandez at his dwelling in February [File: Elmer Martinez/AP Photo]

A month later, a Honduran choose ordered his extradition, which was lately upheld by the Supreme Courtroom following an attraction, opening the door for him to face the costs in US courtroom.

Hernandez’s critics have celebrated the information of his extradition, viewing it as a long-overdue step to carry a corrupt chief accountable.

The 53-year-old former president misplaced his immunity after handing energy over to Xiomara Castro, the nation’s first feminine president, in late January.

He's accused of accepting tens of millions of dollars in bribes to guard drug traffickers from investigation and prosecution, together with from Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Hernandez additionally faces conspiracy costs to import a managed substance into the US, utilizing or carrying firearms together with machine weapons, and conspiracy to make use of or carry firearms.

The main target of prosecutors’ accusations is that Hernandez used bribes and help from drug traffickers to gasoline his political rise from a congressman representing rural Lempira in western Honduras to president of the Nationwide Congress after which two consecutive presidential phrases.

Hernandez has denied all the costs in opposition to him, saying that he's the “sufferer of revenge and conspiracy”.

His spouse, Ana Garcia, additionally joined a gaggle of a few dozen protesters outdoors the Supreme Courtroom in Tegucigalpa this week to proclaim his innocence. “If a citizen is tried, they need to be tried in our nation,” she mentioned.

A lot of the allegations in opposition to Hernandez emerged in two trials in New York — these of Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, the ex-president’s brother and a former Honduran congressman, and Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez.

Each males have been a part of a sprawling drug trafficking case filed in 2015 and each got life sentences.

If convicted, Hernandez may face life in jail.

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