LatinNews Daily - 08 December 2025

Honduras: On 1 December Honduras’ former president Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US on drug trafficking charges, was released days after being pardoned by US President Donald Trump. Hernández’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, posted a screenshot from online federal prison records on social media confirming his release and has since said that he will not immediately return to Honduras. In a social media post on 28 November, Trump declared that “I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly.” Hernández was extradited to the US in April 2022, months after his term ended, and was convicted on 8 March 2024 of “cocaine importation and related weapons offenses” for conspiring to distribute over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US, among other things. On 2 December Trump said that he felt “very good” about the pardon, claiming that Hernández had been the target of a “horrible witch hunt” under the former Joe Biden administration (2021-2025). Trump’s decision to pardon Hernández raised eyebrows given his declared fight against illegal drugs which has been used to justify the US military build-up in the Caribbean near Venezuela, and pressure against President Nicolás Maduro who Washington claims leads the Cártel de los Soles, a Venezuelan drug trafficking group. Writing on social media for example, US Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) questioned why would “we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States? Lock up every drug runner! Don’t understand why he is being pardoned”. Other US legislators were more damning, such as Guatemala-born Norma Torres (D-CA), who warned that “this pardon mocks every American and Honduran who believes in democracy, the rule of law, and justice”.

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