Honduras seeks arrest of ex-President Hernández after Trump pardon : NPR

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras Attorney General Johel Zelaya said Monday that he had ordered Honduran authorities and asked Interpol to execute a 2023 arrest order for ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hernández was released from federal prison in the United States last week after Trump pardoned him. Hernández had been sentenced in U.S. federal court last year to 45 years in prison for helping move tons of cocaine to the United States.

Hernández went from supposed U.S. ally in the war on drugs to the subject of a U.S. extradition request shortly after he left office in 2022. He was detained and sent to the U.S. by current President Xiomara Castro of the social democrat LIBRE party.

Zelaya included a photo of the two-year-old order signed by a Supreme Court magistrate for alleged fraud and money laundering charges. The order says that it must be executed “in the case that the accused is freed by United States authorities.”

Dozens of Honduran officials and politicians were implicated in the so-called Pandora case in which Honduran prosecutors alleged government funds were diverted through a network on nongovernmental organizations to political parties, including Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign.

A lawyer for Hernández, Renato Stabile, said in an email that, “This is obviously a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated Libre party to try to intimidate President Hernandez as they are being kicked out of power in Honduras. It is shameful and a desperate piece of political theatre and these charges are completely baseless.”