By Marisa Taylor
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was freed from a 45-year sentence over cocaine trafficking in the United States by U.S. President Donald Trump, said on Wednesday he will seek to have local charges against him dismissed when he returns to Honduras on Sunday.
The case "was a political maneuver from the former government, but at this point, most of the other people related to that trial already got the charges dismissed. So I hope
it will be the same for us," Hernandez told Reuters alongside his wife Ana Garcia. He maintains his innocence and argues the case was politically motivated.
Hernandez faces separate charges of fraud and money laundering in Honduras that were not affected by the U.S. president's pardon.
Legal experts in Honduras are divided about how Hernandez will fare with local charges, after charges against former President Porfirio Lobo and ex-finance secretary Wilfredo Cerrato were dismissed. They were investigated under the same case as Hernandez, known as Pandora II, which looked into a corruption network and misappropriation of state funds.
Hernandez, who led Honduras from 2014 to 2022, during which many Hondurans fled violence and extortion, said he had already requested the arrest warrant against him be dropped and he expects to start judicial proceedings in early August.
NEW LEADERSHIP
The former president was extradited in 2022 to the U.S., where the Justice Department accused him of using his authority to facilitate the importation of more than 400 metric tons of cocaine into the U.S. Trump pardoned him late last year while Honduras carried out a contentious presidential election.
Prosecutors accused him of turning Honduras into a "narco-state" by protecting cartels in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, and a Manhattan jury found him guilty in 2024. He had served less than two years of his sentence when Trump pardoned him while Honduras carried out a contentious presidential election.
Latin America has in recent years undergone a political realignment, with right-wing leaders backed by or aligned with Trump winning electoral victories across Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Honduras.
Trump supported Honduran businessman and now President Nasry Asfura in November, threatening to cut off U.S. financial support to the small Central American country should the leader of Hernandez's conservative National Party lose to his center-right or leftist rivals.
The action sparked accusations of U.S. interference in a tight election beset by accusations of fraud and vote-rigging during a nearly month-long count.
"That's the way he does it," Hernandez said of Trump's backing of Asfura. "Former governments from the United States have done it differently, but they have done it."
Hernandez, who served a legally contested second term in office, did not rule out standing again for office, noting that while this was not in his immediate plans, he was prepared to share his political experience with those in power.
"We have a new leadership in our party; we want to support them," he said. "If we can be helpful, we will."
Hernandez expects to return to Palmerola Airport on Sunday, some 60 km (37 miles) northwest of the capital.
(Reporting by Marisa Taylor; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Rod Nickel)
