Juan Orlando Hernández is back home after walking out of a US federal prison, following a pardon from US President Donald Trump that wiped away his 45-year sentence for drug trafficking and weapons offences.
Updated inmate records confirmed he left USP Hazelton in West Virginia on Monday, ending a long legal fight that began with his extradition more than two years ago.
The former Honduran leader had been convicted in March 2024 for helping move cocaine into the US and for possessing machine guns. Trump announced the pardon last Friday, saying Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly”, a position he repeated during a talk with reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.
He added, “They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country.”
Hernández’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, reacted on Tuesday through her social media pages, expressing gratitude to Trump and saying her husband had regained his freedom.
Hernández, who served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 under the National Party, had been extradited to the US in April 2022 to face accusations that he oversaw a violent drug network and protected traffickers in exchange for large sums of money.
Prosecutors told the court that he turned Honduras into a “narco-state” and supported the smuggling of hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the US. Along with the prison term, he had been ordered to pay an 8 million dollar fine.
His release comes at a tense political moment in Honduras, where the contest to pick the next president is still too close to call. By Monday afternoon, only 515 votes separated right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura from Salvador Nasralla, who is running on a centrist platform and is best known as a former television host.
Trump entered the debate last week, calling Nasralla “a borderline Communist” and praising Asfura for “standing up for democracy”.
He also highlighted Asfura’s pushback against Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, with whom Trump has had a series of public clashes in recent months. Nasralla, for his part, has promised to cut ties with Venezuela if elected.
The Trump administration has taken a strong line against Maduro, whose re-election last year was rejected by several countries. US officials accuse the Venezuelan leader of heading a drugs cartel and say their military operations in the Caribbean are aimed at stopping trafficking.
They have also targeted vessels they say were used for smuggling, although some analysts have noted that the actions also serve to pressure governments in the region.
Honduras is currently under the leadership of President Xiomara Castro, who came into office in 2022 and has kept close relations with Cuba and Venezuela.
