United States justice ensured that the President of Honduras had teamed up with a drug trafficker to smuggle cocaine

President of Honduras partnered with cocaine lab that made tons of drugs to send to the United Statesa New York prosecutor said on Friday in a drug trafficking trial that tackles deep-rooted corruption at the highest political level in the Central American country.

Manhattan Federal Court prosecutors claim that Juan Orlando Hernández, President of Honduras, was a partner of the accused, Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, and of his brother Tony Hernández, convicted of large-scale drug trafficking in New York in 2019. And although they did not indict him, throughout the two-week process, they insisted on his participation in the conspiracy.

“Juan Orlando Hernández did not only want the accused’s money (in the form of bribes), he wanted to have access to the accused’s cocaine (…) in order to be able to export it” to the States -Unis via Puerto Cortés, the largest Honduran port, close to the cocaine installed in Cerro Negro, Prosecutor Michael Lockard said in his closing statement against Fuentes.

The prosecutor said that the intermediary between the president and Fuentes was his brother Tony.

“Tony Hernández, like Juan Orlando Hernández, was one of the accused’s associates in the drug trade. He is the man who ran the drug trade for Juan Orlando, who bribed drug money from Los Cachiros, This is the man who sent kilos of cocaine with his initials, ”Lockard said.

The prosecutor said that “Los Cachiros has paid huge sums of money to presidents and presidential candidates: Juan Orlando Hernández, his predecessor Pepe Lobo, his predecessor Manuel Zelaya, Ricardo Álvarez, who became vice-president and many others.”

The President of Honduras denies all accusations and claims to have fought drug trafficking with great success since taking office in 2014.

“Too much money at stake”

Prosecutor Lockard said that the cocaine lab in question, located near the northern Honduran town of Choloma, was not closed after its 2011 raid, as presumed at the time, but continued to operate.

He recalled that during the police operation carried out in 2011, no drugs were found, the defendant having been alerted to the raid, and that later Fuentes kidnapped, tortured and murdered, along with his partner Melvin “Metro” Sandres, the policeman who led the operation.

“The laboratory did not close because the accused made an agreement with Juan Orlando Hernández and his brother (…) to keep it running,” Lockard said. “There was too much money at stake.”

In his closing statement, defense lawyer Avi Moskowitz gravely attacked the credibility of cooperating witnesses, in particular the former Los Cachiros cartel leader Leonel Rivera, who confesses to killing or ordering the murder of 78 people and faces a life sentence plus 30 years in prison.

Devil

“This man must be the most vile and contemptible person we have ever met in any area of ​​life. And this is the person the government has put on the witness stand and asked to believe beyond a reasonable doubt. A man who has no morals, has no qualms and probably has no soul, ”Moskowitz said.

He also said the government did not show videos, photos, police or forensic reports or other evidence to guarantee the guilt of the accused. “The bottom line is that there is no evidence of corrupt relations with all these police and politicians,” he said.

Prosecutors say the accused eliminated evidence such as text messages and WhatsApp, but point out that he had contact with Hernández and many other politicians and police officers on his cell phone, and that on two occasions he has looked for how to get to the presidential house. in the Waze app. In both cases, he did so right after US prosecutors presented key documents in the case against Tony Hernández.

“Evidence at trial showed that the accused is exactly what we said to be, a violent drug dealer who distributed massive amounts of cocaine and committed corruption and murder,” said prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig.

Fuentes, arrested a year ago in Miami, is charged with three crimes of drug trafficking and possession of weapons. The jury began deliberating on its verdict on Friday and will continue to do so next Monday.

The conviction of Tony Hernández, accused of trafficking 185 tons of cocaine to the United States, is scheduled for March 30.

Fabio Lobo, son of former Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo (2010-2014), was sentenced in 2017 in New York to 24 years in prison for trafficking 1.4 tonnes of cocaine to the United States.

By Laura Bonilla (AFP)

KEEP READING: