They accused the President of Honduras of helping a drug dealer to smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States.

The President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, contributed to the trafficking of tonnes of cocaine into the United States, the US prosecutor said on Tuesday Well-meaning Jacob in the first arguments of the federal lawsuit against the alleged drug trafficker Geovanny fuentes At New York.

The US Federal Prosecutor’s Office today opened the trial against the alleged Honduran narco, assuring that he had collaborated for years with the current president of the country, and describing Honduras as a “narco-state”. “The accused was part of the Honduran drug state (…) The president gave him bulletproof armor”Gutwillig said.

According to prosecutors, Fuentes Ramírez operated a huge cocaine distribution business through violence and his relations with the police, the army and the political class, “including the current president of Honduras”.

In your opening statement, The prosecutor’s office ensured that the alleged drug trafficker was associated with Hernández in 2013, when he was running for president, and that together they planned to send “as much cocaine as possible to the United States” .

Prosecutors had previously argued alleged ties between Fuentes Ramírez and the Honduran president in previously filed documents, but on Tuesday they made it clear that this relationship would be a key part of their case.

“The accused was a fundamental part of a Honduran narco-state,” said a United States attorney representative for the Southern District of New York, who said that During the trial, evidence of “secret meetings” that the alleged trafficker and the Honduran president held in 2013 and 2014 will be presented.

According to Gutwillig, a man present at these meetings, an accountant identified as José Sánchez, who worked for a rice company through which Fuentes laundered money, he will tell the jury “the shock, the fear he felt when he saw the accused sit down with the president”. During one of these meetings, according to prosecutors, Hernández declared his intention to “Put drugs in the noses of the gringos”, in reference to an alleged desire to send large quantities of cocaine to the United States.

A kilogram of cocaine gives 8,000 individual doses and sells for $ 30,000 in New York City, the prosecutor said. The accused’s laboratory was producing “hundreds of kilograms per month” and, in collaboration with Honduran police, armed forces and politicians, “transported it freely” across the country to the north.

According to them, the Honduran president received bribes from Fuentes Ramírez and access to his cocaine laboratory and, in return, He promised protection and cooperation. Specifically, prosecutor Gutwillig said the narco gave Hernández $ 25,000 and that the bribe made him “untouchable”.

The defense lawyer, Eylan Schulman, tried to discredit the accountant’s possible testimony in his pleadings. “It only takes $ 25,000 to bribe a president,” he said. The accountant “has a lot to gain and little to lose” with his testimony as he hopes to be granted asylum in the United States in return, he said.

The defense also told the jury that they should not believe the testimony that “one of the worst murderers on the face of the Earth” will give. Leonel Rivera, former leader of the Honduran Los Cachiros cartel, which killed 78 people, attempted to kill 15 others and is jailed in the United States for drug trafficking.

“The (US) government has agreed to make a deal with this devil … You should never believe it,” said Schulman, who has championed the role of the Hernández government in the fight against drug trafficking.

So far, Hernández has denied any involvement at any time, which he reiterated via Twitter on Monday, in a series of messages in which he also issued a warning to Washington.

The Honduran president assured that he would maintain “the international alliance in the fight against drug trafficking” until the end of his term, but warned that If drug traffickers “with the magic key to lies take advantage of the United States through false testimony, the international alliance would collapse with Honduras and then with several countries.”

Juan Orlando Hernández has been a close ally of the United States since 2014, first with President Barack Obama, then from 2017 to January of this year with Donald Trump.

His brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, according to the United States, also involved in this drug trafficking case, had already been convicted in October 2019 in the United States for drug and arms trafficking. His sentence, which has been postponed several times, is scheduled for March 23. You can be sentenced to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, 50, was arrested a year ago in Miami and has pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and illegal possession of weapons.

Prosecutors say Tony was the intermediary between Fuentes and the President of Honduras.

The first witness in the trial was the agent for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Brian Fairbanks, who confirmed to the jury that on the accused’s cell phone, they found Juan Orlando Hernández’s email address and his cell number.

The prosecution showed the jury photos of Fuentes ‘brother and son with President Hernández found on the accused’s phone, as well as photos of various weapons found in the iCloud of one of Fuentes’ sons. One of them, an automatic rifle offered to the president as a gift which above the trigger is inscribed with the caption “JOH, President of the Republic”.

In its initial argument, the accused’s defense sought to discredit the witnesses the prosecution plans to present, by ensuring that among them are several criminals who are only seeking favorable treatment from the prosecution. US authorities.

At Tony Hernández’s trial in New York, witnesses also said that Former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014) had received bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for protection. Lobo’s son, Fabio, was sentenced in 2017 in New York to 24 years in prison for drug trafficking.

With information from EFE and AFP

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