Honduras’ attorney general is calling for the arrest of former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez said Monday that he had instructed Honduran authorities and asked Interpol to execute a 2023 arrest warrant against Hernández on alleged fraud and money laundering charges. Hernandez, who was sentenced to 45 years in 2024 for allegedly helping to transport tons of cocaine into the US, was released from federal prison in the US a week ago.
“We are torn by the tentacles of corruption and by the criminal networks that have deeply scarred the life of our country,” Zelaya said, according to a translation of a message he wrote on X.
Zelaya included a photo of the two-year-old order, signed by a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Honduras, which states that it must be executed “in the event that the suspect is released by the US authorities.”
FORMER HONDUREAN PRESIDENT RELEASED FROM US PRISON AFTER TRUMP PARDON
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, right, was pardoned by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, December 2, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Dozens of Honduran officials and politicians were involved in the so-called Pandora case, in which Honduran prosecutors alleged that government funds were diverted to political parties through a network of non-governmental organizations, including Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign, according to The Associated Press.
Hernández went from being an alleged U.S. ally in the war on drugs to being the subject of a U.S. extradition request shortly after leaving office in 2022, the AP added. He was detained and sent to the US by current President Xiomara Castro of the social democratic party LIBRE.
A lawyer for Hernández, Renato Stabile, told the AP in an email: “This is clearly a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated Libre party to try to intimidate President Hernandez while they are being removed from power in Honduras. It is shameful and a desperate piece of political theater and these accusations are completely baseless.”
Hernández was released after Trump announced he would grant him a “full pardon” following his conviction for conspiring with drug traffickers to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the US.
FORMER WORLD LEADER THANKS TRUMP FOR BOUNDARIES: ‘YOU CHANGED MY LIFE’
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, second from right, is taken in handcuffs to a waiting plane as he is extradited to the United States on April 21, 2022, at an air base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. (Elmer Martinez/AP)
Trump said Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly,” implying his trial was politically motivated or excessively prosecuted.
Hernández was convicted after a two-week trial in New York on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the US and two related weapons crimes.
Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement that worked with U.S. authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to curb drug imports, the AP said. But the judge said the evidence from the trial proved otherwise and that Hernández used “significant acting skills” to give the impression that he was a crusader against the drug trade while, when necessary, using his country’s police and military to protect the drug trade.
Hernández later thanked Trump for his pardon, writing on social media that he had been “wrongfully convicted.”
Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks during the opening ceremony of the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday, November 1, 2021. (Andy Buchanan/AP)
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“My deep gratitude goes out to President @realDonaldTrump for his courage to defend justice at a time when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth. You assessed the facts, recognized the injustice and acted with conviction. You changed my life, sir, and I will never forget it,” Hernández wrote on X.
