MEXICO CITY — The United States has asked Honduras to arrest former President Juan Orlando Hernandez for his eventual extradition to the U.S., officials confirmed Monday.
Honduras’ foreign affairs ministry initially said via Twitter that it had notified the country’s Supreme Court of Justice that the U.S. Embassy had formally requested the arrest of a Honduran politician for the purposes of extradition.
The ministry did not identify the politician. But Honduras’ current vice-president, Salvador Nasralla, confirmed to The Associated Press that request names Hernandez.
CNN en Espanol first reported that the politician was Hernandez, showing the communication from the ministry to the court naming Hernandez.
Nicole Navas, a spokxjmtzyweswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hernandez left office Jan. 27 with the swearing in of President Xiomara Castro. The same day Hernandez left office he was sworn in as Honduras’ representative to the Central American Parliament.
With a weak and co-opted Honduran justice system, Hondurans’ hope for justice had rested for years with U.S. federal prosecutors in New York, where a string of revelations against Hernandez was closely followed back home.
Speculation had swirled for months over whether Hernandez would be charged once he was no longer president, because U.S. prosecutors in New York repeatedly implicated him in his brother’s 2019 drug trafficking trial, alleging that his political rise was fuelled by drug profits.
Hernandez strongly denied any such activities.
