The Attorney General of Honduras today asked Interpol to arrest the country's former president Juan Orlando Hernandez, pardoned at the end of November by US President Donald Trump after he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking, Agence France-Presse reported.
"I call on [...] Interpol to execute the international arrest warrant against former president Juan Orlando Hernandez, accused of money laundering and fraud," wrote Attorney General Joel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez on the social network "Ex".
The former right-wing president, who ruled the country from 2014 to 2022, was sentenced in 2024 in the United States to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking, after being extradited from Honduras.
Fifty-seven-year-old Juan Orlando Hernandez was found guilty of protecting drug traffickers and allowing hundreds of tons of cocaine to be shipped to the United States.
Thanks to a pardon from Donald Trump, he was released from prison on December 1 and ruled out any return to his country.
This amnesty, as well as the support given by Trump to the former head of state's favorite, Nasri Asfoura, for the presidential election on November 30, led the Liberal Party of outgoing President Xiomara Castro to demand a "total annulment" of the election results, arguing for US interference.
Marked by several interruptions, the vote count is still not over. Preliminary results show Asfoura tied with liberal candidate Salvador Nasrallah.
The Cuban Supreme People's Tribunal sentenced former Economy Minister Alejandro Gil to life in prison on Monday after a short trial in which the defendant was found guilty of espionage and corruption, Reuters reported.
The agency notes that the corruption case against the minister has become a landmark in the modern history of the island communist state.
"Alejandro Miguel Gil Fernandez, through corrupt and fraudulent actions, abused his official position and the responsibility entrusted to him to obtain personal benefits, obtain of money from foreign companies and bribing government officials to legalize the acquired funds," the tribunal said in a statement.