Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández has been released from prison after receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump, according to an announcement from his wife and confirmation from U.S. prison officials.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate website indicated Hernández was released Monday from U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson confirmed the release Tuesday.
Hernández’s wife, Ana García, thanked Trump for the pardon in a post early Tuesday on the social media platform 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.”
Hernández was arrested in February 2022 at the request of the United States, weeks after leaving office and transferring power to current President Xiomara Castro.
In 2024, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a New York federal courtroom after prosecutors said he accepted bribes from drug traffickers to help them move roughly 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras and toward the United States.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
READ NEXT: Report: Alleged National Guard Shooter Previously Worked With CIA In Afghanistan
