A court in New York on Wednesday sentenced former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández to 45 years in prison after he was convicted of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.
Anti-Hernández protesters gathered outside the Manhattan courthouse ahead of the sentencing with placards decrying the former head of state's crimes.
The sentence, which also included an $8 million fine, was less than the life imprisonment that prosecutors had sought —although Hernández's age, 55, means he may die behind bars.
Judge P. Kevin Castel said the sentence should serve as a warning to "well educated, well dressed" individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.
But Hernández remained defiant. "I am innocent," he said through an interpreter at his sentencing. "I was wrongly and unjustly accused."
In a lengthy extemporaneous statement interrupted several times by the judge, who reminded Hernández that this was not a time to relitigate the trial, the former leader portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement who teamed up with American authorities under three U.S. administrations to reduce drug imports.
But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hernández employed "considerable acting skills" to make it seem that he was an anti-drug trafficking crusader while he deployed his nation's police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.
Hernández , who U.S. federal prosecutors said turned his Central American country into a "narco-state" during his presidency from 2014 to 2022, has previously indicated through his legal team he would appeal his conviction.
Hernández was convicted in March of having facilitated the smuggling of some 500 tons of cocaine —mainly from Colombia and Venezuela— to the United States via Honduras since 2004, starting long before his presidency.
Hernández used the drug money to enrich himself and finance his political campaign, and commit electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, prosecutors said.
He was extradited to the United States in 2022, accused of aiding drug smugglers in return for millions of dollars in bribes.
"Hernández received millions of dollars in drug money from some of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere, and used those bribes to fuel his rise in Honduran politics," federal prosecutors previously said.
Hernández follows in the footsteps of other former Latin American heads of state convicted in the United States, like Panama's Manuel Noriega in 1992 and Guatemala's Alfonso Portillo in 2014.
Prosecutors said the former president had worked closely with the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's most violent criminal organizations. Its founder, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is serving a life sentence in the United States.
"When the leader of Honduras and the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel work hand-in-hand to send deadly drugs into American communities, both deserve to be held accountable in the United States," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement. "This case should send a clear message that no one is above the law or beyond our reach."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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