Honduran president’s brother sentenced to life in prison in U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Tony Hernández was sentenced on Tuesday, March 30, to life in prison by a New York judge for smuggling 185 tons of drugs into the United States, with the collaboration of his brother, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, according to prosecutors. The president denies accusations that he is involved.

After a two-week trial in New York in October 2019, former Congressman Tony Hernández, 42, was found guilty on all four counts he was charged with, including trafficking cocaine into the United States, false testimony and possession of firearms. Now the judge handed down the sentence he will have to serve. “Based on Juan Antonio’s free choice to engage in a life of drug trafficking over a 12-year period, which affected the lives of people in the United States and Honduras, a sentence of life imprisonment is well deserved,” said Judge Kevin Castel.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York asserted at his trial that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was a key associate of his brother Tony, although he has not been indicted. “The defendant was a Honduran congressman who, along with his brother Juan Orlando Hernandez, played a leadership role in a violent, state-sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy,” prosecutors wrote to the judge before sentencing.

Tony Hernandez operated “with total impunity” thanks to his brother’s protection and contributed to the “rotting” of Honduras’ institutions, the prosecution also said during the trial. Juan Orlando Hernández, a lawyer who came to power in January 2014 and is in his second term, denies having been an associate of his brother in cocaine trafficking to the United States and says drug traffickers who testified against his brother in both trials want revenge against him for his fight against drug trafficking.

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