Juan Orlando Hernández delivered his national statement during the World Leaders’ Summit at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 1, 2021.
Honduras’s attorney general has issued an arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernández, only days after he was freed from a U.S. federal prison following a pardon granted by President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez announced on X Monday that he had asked national authorities and Interpol to detain Hernández on charges of money laundering and fraud.
“We have been deeply scarred by the tentacles of corruption and the criminal networks that have profoundly shaped the life of our country,” Zelaya wrote.
His message included a photo of the Supreme Court’s arrest order dated November 28 the same day Trump revealed his intention to pardon Hernández. The pardon drew bipartisan criticism in both Honduras and the United States.
Hernández, who governed Honduras from 2014 to 2022, had been convicted last year in U.S. federal court and sentenced to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine for drug trafficking offenses.
The new charges in Honduras stem from the “Pandora II” anti-corruption probe, which has implicated senior politicians, government officials, and business leaders. Prosecutors say Hernández diverted roughly $2.4 million in illicit kickbacks from public contracts to fund his 2013 presidential campaign.
In response, Hernández’s attorney, Renato Stabile, denounced the arrest order as a political ploy by the ruling Libre party, which opposes the conservative National Party once led by Hernández.
“This is purely a political stunt by the defeated radical-left Libre party as they face being removed from power by the Honduran people. It is a shameful and desperate act of political theater, and the charges are entirely unfounded,” Stabile said.
Luis Santos, head of Honduras’s Specialized Unit Against Corruption Crimes, confirmed earlier that Hernández already had “an open case in the Supreme Court for money laundering and fraud,” noting that an international arrest warrant has been with the Ministry of Security and Interpol since September 2023.
Santos added that if Hernández does not return voluntarily, Honduras will file an extradition request with the United States.
Trump officially pardoned Hernández on December 3, saying at the White House, “I feel pretty good about it,” and calling the prosecution a “Biden horrible witch hunt.”
The decision drew rebukes from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who questioned pardoning an individual convicted of drug trafficking despite the administration’s stated priority of combating narcotics networks in Latin America.
U.S. prosecutors had accused Hernández of working with drug cartels throughout his presidency and enabling more than 400 tons of cocaine to transit through Honduras on its way to the United States. In return, they alleged, Hernández accepted millions of dollars in bribes to bolster his political rise.
Hernández has continued to insist he is innocent, arguing that his trial was “rigged” and built on testimony from criminals seeking revenge.
Following his pardon, the former president thanked Trump in an X post on Wednesday for “having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth.”
