Militant protests have swept through Honduras since the Oct. 18 conviction by a federal jury in New York of the brother of President Juan Orlando Hernández on narco-trafficking charges. Thousands have filled the streets of cities and towns across the Central American country to demand the resignation of Hernández. Protesters have repeatedly blocked traffic arteries, erecting barricades with stones and flaming tires. A police transport truck was set on fire in Tegucigalpa. Opposition leader Salvador Nasralla of the Anticorruption Party has thrown his support behind the protests and called on the security forces to stand down, invoking a “right to insurrection” in Article 3 of the Honduran constitution.
Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández was convicted in what US prosecutors described as a conspiracy that relied on “state-sponsored drug trafficking.” Prosecutors alleged that Tony served as the conduit for a $1 million bribe to President Hernández from Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The crisis comes just weeks after Honduras signed a deal with Washington to accept diverted migrants seeking asylum in the US. Under the agreement, the US would be able to deport to Honduras any asylum-seekers who passed through the country on the way to the United States’ southern border. (Izquierda Diario, Prensa Latina, Abolition Media Worldwide, AP, BBC News, BBC News, CNN, NYP)
See our last post on the political crisis in Honduras.
Photo via AMW
Honduran convicted in case linked to President Hernández
A New York jury found a Honduran man accused of criminal dealings with the country’s President Juan Orlando Hernández and other high-ranking officials guilty on three counts of drug trafficking and related weapons charges. Prosecutors said Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, who was arrested in Miami in March 2020, smuggled drugs into the United States with the help of Hernández, who has been president since 2014. (Reuters)
US court sentences Honduran president’s brother to life
Tony Hernández, a former Honduran congressman and brother of the sitting president, was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years for drug trafficking by a US federal judge in Manhattan on March 30. (Reuters, DoJ)