Ex-president of Honduras extradited to US on drugs charges

Let’s cut to the chase with the final paragraph of the story:

The case draws close comparison to that of Panama’s former dictator Manuel Noriega, a general and de facto leader who was extradited to the US on drug trafficking charges following a December 1989 US military invasion that ousted him. Like Hernández, Noriega was accused of double-crossing the DEA. He was convicted and spent almost two decades in prison.

Somehow rounding up Presidents, ex-Presidents and in this case Juan Orlando Hernandez gives me pause. Once a favorite of the Obama/Biden crew, one wonders whose toes did he step on and not pay. Call me cynical. One thing for sure, we will never know. Considering enough Fentanyl is crossing our border every day to kill a good majority of us, one has to wonder how this fellow reached the top of the Biden list of the DOJ. Of course we have VP Harris on the job. This is part of her so called “portfolio.”

Well done. How much did this cost us? Perhaps not enough for the “big guy?” Paging Hunter.

Here we go:

US Drug Enforcement Administration agents have extradited the Honduran former president Juan Orlando Hernández to New York, where he will face federal drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Honduran national police delivered a handcuffed Hernández to DEA agents at the Tegucigalpa airport just over two months after he was arrested outside his home on 15 February following an extradition request from the US Department of Justice.

Hernández, 53, left office on 27 January after two terms as president. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have accused him of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug traffickers in exchange for protection from law enforcement. He is charged with drug trafficking conspiracy and two related weapons charges, which carry a combined mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison.

….

“This is revenge from the cartels, it’s an orchestrated plot so that no government will confront them again,” he said in a handwritten letter published last month. “Part of that conspiracy has been a campaign of hate and misinformation. But it’s evident, the contradictions of criminals, trial after trial, they lie and contradict themselves.”

In 2012, as president of the National Congress, Hernández played a key role in the passage of a constitutional reform allowing Honduran nationals to be extradited to the US on drug trafficking and other charges. He often cited this as evidence of his innocence, stating that someone who worked to push extradition through Congress would not conspire with drug traffickers. Hernández is the 30th Honduran to be extradited to the US.

Read more at the Guardian