Former president’s lawyer says Hernandez, who's dealing with drug fees, is being handled like a ‘prisoner of battle’.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has pleaded not responsible to drug fees in the US, together with his lawyer complaining that he's being held like a “prisoner of battle” in a New York federal jail.
Hernandez, 53, appeared in US federal courtroom on Tuesday with chains round his ankles and spoke via a Spanish interpreter saying he was not responsible.
He was extradited to the US final month and charged with collaborating in a “corrupt and violent drug-trafficking conspiracy to facilitate the importation of lots of of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into the US”.
The ex-president, who served two phrases between 2014 and January 2022, has maintained that he's harmless. He misplaced his immunity from prosecution when he handed energy over to Honduras’s first feminine president, Xiomara Castro, in January.
Defence lawyer Raymond Colon stated on Tuesday that Hernandez was held in solitary confinement and had not been allowed to name his household.
“Clearly, he’s been handled like a prisoner of battle, not like each different inmate,” Colon stated.
US District Choose P Kevin Castel ordered the federal government to look into the circumstances of Hernandez’s detention and report back to him inside per week. The decide additionally set a preliminary trial date for January 17.
The US indictment had charged Hernandez with three counts of drug and weapons offences that might land him a long time in jail if convicted.
Damian Williams, the US legal professional for the Southern District of New York, stated throughout a information convention on Thursday night that Hernandez was concerned in “rampant corruption and large cocaine trafficking” that spurred violence in Honduras.
“Honduras grew to become one of the violent international locations on the earth throughout the defendant’s presidency, and whereas Hernandez amassed cash and political affect, the folks of Honduras endured circumstances of poverty and violence,” he stated.
Hernandez has beforehand denied the allegations. In a video message launched earlier than his extradition, he stated, “I'm harmless; I've been and I'm being unjustly subjected to prosecution.”
His brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez was sentenced to life in jail within the US in March 2021 for “a lifetime of drug trafficking”, the trial decide stated. In that trial, prosecutors stated Juan Antonio distributed drug-related bribes to his brother, then the sitting president of Honduras.
The US additionally extradited former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla on Tuesday to face drug-related fees, the AFP and Reuters information companies reported.
In April, US authorities accused Bonilla of abusing “his positions in Honduran legislation enforcement to flout the legislation and play a key function in a violent worldwide drug trafficking conspiracy”.
However, like Hernandez, Bonilla has denied the accusations. “I'm going with the presence of the Almighty, my head held excessive, a transparent conscience that I owe nothing to the US,” Bonilla wrote in a letter printed in native media final week.
Post a Comment