The Honduran attorney general on Monday announced an international arrest warrant against Juan Orlando Hernández, the country’s former president, who recently received a pardon from President Trump and was released from prison.
Honduras’ attorney general Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez, wrote on X that he had instructed the national security offices and international security agencies (INTERPOL) to execute an arrest warrant against Hernández, who is accused of money laundering and fraud.
Alvarez said charges stem from the “Pandora II” investigation, referring to a case surrounding a network of corrupt lawmakers and others diverting public funds through private foundations and then into political campaigns, including Hernández’s 2013 campaign, The New York Times reported.
“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by the criminal networks that have deeply marked the life of our country,” Alvarez said in a post on X that was translated from Spanish.
“Our commitment is to the truth and to justice, as I promised on my first day at the helm of this institution.”
In his post, Alvarez included a photo of a document dated November 28 that showed a Honduran Supreme Court justice asking Interpol to carry out an arrest against Hernández if he was released from the U.S.
Renato Stabile, Hernández’s lawyer, told the Times that the warrant announcement was “obviously a strictly political move” by the governing Libre Party, whose candidate is trailing as ballots are being counted in the recent presidential election. Alvarez was nominated to his post by the Libre Party, which is opposed to Hernández.
Hernández was arrested in the U.S. in 2018 on drug trafficking charges and was convicted last and sentenced to 45 years in prison for “cocaine importation and related weapons offenses.”
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate website indicated Hernández was released Dec. 1 from U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia. (RELATED: Ex-Honduran President Leaves Prison After Trump Pardon)
Hernández’s wife, Ana García, thanked Trump for the pardon in a post early Tuesday on X.
“After almost four years of pain, of waiting and difficult challenges, my husband Juan Orlando Hernández RETURNED to being a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,” García wrote. She included a photo of the Bureau of Prisons listing showing Hernández’s release.
Trump addressed the decision Sunday when reporters traveling with him on Air Force One asked why he granted the pardon.
“I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras,” Trump said.
“The people of Honduras really thought he was set up, and it was a terrible thing,” he said.
“They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration set-up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”
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