Honduras issues international arrest warrant for ex-president Hernandez days after US pardon

Honduras’s attorney general has requested Interpol assistance to detain former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, escalating a political and legal clash just days after the ex-leader walked out of a US prison with a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.

Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya announced the warrant Monday on X, instructing the country’s investigative agency to move forward and urging Interpol “to execute the international arrest warrant against former President Juan Orlando Hernández”.

Hernandez, extradited to the United States in 2022, was convicted in New York on drug and weapons charges after prosecutors accused him of turning Honduras into a “narco-state” and collaborating with traffickers to funnel cocaine north. He received a 45-year sentence for what prosecutors called “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world”. Trump’s recent pardon released him from custody.

Hernandez’s wife says he will not return to Honduras immediately for safety reasons and is currently in a “safe place” somewhere in the US. She maintains he is innocent.