US federal prosecutors have accused the Honduran government of essentially functioning as a narco-state, with the current and former presidents having received campaign contributions from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection.
A 49-page document filed in New York’s southern district on Friday refers to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez as a co-conspirator who worked with his brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, and former Honduran president Porfirio Lobo “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.”
It says that Hernandez and his predecessor “relied on drug proceeds” to fund political campaigns and cites “evidence of high-level political corruption.”
The filing came months after other US federal court documents showed that Hernandez and some of his closest advisers were among the targets of a US Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, casting further doubt on the US’ assertion that Honduras has helped stop the flow of drugs.
The US government has been a staunch supporter of Hernandez’s government, pouring millions of US dollars into security cooperation to stop cocaine headed to the US from South America.
The office of the Honduran president said on Twitter on Saturday that Hernandez “categorically denies the false and perverse accusations.”
It later issued a separate, lengthier statement suggesting that the allegations were put forward by drug dealers seeking retaliation against Hernandez, who was head of the Honduran Congress in 2012, when the legislature authorized extradition of Honduran nationals to face drug-trafficking charges in the US.
Since then, more than 40 Hondurans have been extradited and others have negotiated plea deals with US officials in exchange for information, the office said.
“President Hernandez has been relentless in the fight against drug traffickers despite predictable reprisals, to the point that one of his 17 siblings, a younger brother, is now being tried in New York,” the office said.
Specifically, New York prosecutors allege that Hernandez used US$1.5 million in drug trafficking proceeds to help secure power in 2013.
That campaign support came via cash bribes to Honduran officials as well as gifts and favors to local politicians, they said.
Hernandez won re-election in 2017, despite term limits in Honduras and widespread allegations of election fraud.
The filing also alludes to multiple payments of US$1 million or more from drug dealers to Lobo.
Lobo’s wife was last year arrested by Honduran officials on charges of diverting US$700,000 in public funds. His son, Fabio, was in 2017 sentenced in the US to 24 years in prison for drug trafficking.
Lobo was Hernandez’s mentor and oversaw his rise to power.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS