Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has been pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump, ending his 45-year sentence for drug-trafficking conspiracy charges. Hernandez’s attorney, Renato Stabile, said the evidence used at trial was “extremely weak” and relied heavily on testimony from “violent narco-traffickers.” Stabile warned that Hernandez remains unsafe to return to Honduras. Trump’s decision has sparked major political and diplomatic controversy, with critics arguing it undermines long-standing U.S. anti-drug efforts.
00:58I have spoken with him, as you can imagine. He is incredibly relieved. He's happy. I think it's actually a little disorienting for him. He's been in jail, remember, for nearly four years. He has not seen his family in nearly four years because they were denied visas. They weren't even allowed to attend his criminal trial. So it's obviously been a long, long time, and I think he's just getting acclimated, but he's very grateful to President Trump, and he's very thankful.
01:28It's not clear at this time. I think the Libre Party, as you know, is still in power, and Honduras is having their elections and the results this week. So I think it's clear that the Libre Party will not win, but they will still win.
01:58He'll be in power until January, so I'm not sure that it would be safe for him to go back. And of course, remember, President Hernandez was one of the most aggressive Latin American leaders when it came to going after the cartels and narco-terrorists.
02:12Now, the U.S. accused him of being a narco-terrorist himself, but his record speaks for itself, and it was actually under his watch that the extradition treaty with the United States was put back into place, and he extradited more narco-traffickers than any other president. So he has a lot of concerns.
02:42Well, the evidence at trial was incredibly weak, and I was the trial lawyer, and I was the person, the court-appointed lawyer, who was only given three weeks to prepare when his retained counsel fell ill.
02:54Well, the evidence at trial was incredibly weak, and I was the trial lawyer, and I was the person, the court-appointed lawyer, who was only given three weeks to prepare when his retained counsel fell ill.
03:07Now, his retained counsel was still on the case, but he was not able to function the way he should have been able to function.
03:12But really, the evidence was just based on the word of extremely violent narco-traffickers, people who, by their own admission, had murdered and tortured dozens of people.
03:23And I'm talking about things like chopped-off heads, chopped-off body parts, really gruesome stuff.
03:29Some of them are back out on the street. They made deals with the United States government.
03:33But in terms of corroborating evidence, there was really little, and I, as the defense attorney, was arguing for additional evidence to come in that would have exonerated him, in my opinion, additional drug ledgers that would have explained the ledgers the government put in.
03:49So it was a very weird situation when the defense lawyer wants to put in the drug ledgers, and the government is saying, no, no, no, we don't want the jury to see that.
03:57Nadie debe sorprenderse de las barbaridades que digan estos delincuentes que fueron capaces de atropellar la libertad y la vida de miles de personas durante tantos años.
04:11¿Cómo no van a ser capaces de decir lo que sea con tal de vengarse, con tal de beneficiarse de la reducción en sus penas?
04:20Look, there were no, there were no written records, there were no bank accounts, there were no videos, there were no text messages, there were no emails, there was no real corroborating evidence of anything people were saying.
04:34They were just saying, oh yeah, I bribed him, I gave him a million dollars, or I gave him $200,000 with zero corroborating evidence of any of that.
04:42And so that was really the problem with the case, that you had a case built on the word of these notorious drug dealers, and then the government had some other things that they sprinkled in there, like these drug ledgers, but again, they only wanted to tell the jury half the story.
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05:26This is his first day as a free man, so I think it's premature to figure out what
05:33he's going to do next. His name is clear. He received a full and unconditional pardon
05:39from President Trump, so there is nothing left. It has been wiped away completely and
05:44absolutely. In terms of what he's going to do next, like I said, I think it's just too
05:49early to tell. I don't know if he's going to return to politics. I don't know what his
05:52next thing is going to be.
06:22To be united as a family after all this adversity, to be united in a very private life,
06:29to be able to continue serving our God and the goals he has. He's healthy, he's very
06:37happy and very grateful, and we hope that in the next days, we don't know when, we don't
06:43know officially at the moment, but we believe that in the next days we'll have it with us.
06:49Once again, thank you President Trump. Thank you to your administration, to all the family
06:56friends who have been there for us. May God bless the United States, President Trump, his administration,
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