Honduras looking to arrest former president pardoned by Trump

Honduras’ attorney general is seeking 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 ordered Honduran authorities and asked Interpol to execute a 2023 arrest warrant for Hernández on alleged charges of fraud and money laundering. Hernández, who was sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison for allegedly helping transport tons of cocaine to the United States, was released from U.S. federal prison a week ago.

“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by the criminal networks that have deeply marked the life of our country,” Zelaya said, according to the translation of an article he wrote on X.

Zelaya included a photo of the two-year-old order, signed by a Honduran Supreme Court magistrate, who says it must be carried out “in the event that the accused is released by U.S. authorities.”

FORMER HONDER 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 have been implicated in the so-called Pandora affair, in which Honduran prosecutors alleged that government funds were diverted through a network of nongovernmental organizations to political parties, including Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign, according to the Associated Press.

Hernández went from being a supposed ally of the United States in the war on drugs to becoming the subject of a U.S. extradition request shortly after leaving office in 2022, the AP added. He was arrested and sent to the United States by current President Xiomara Castro of the social democratic party LIBRE.

Hernández’s lawyer, Renato Stabile, told the AP in an email: “This is obviously a strictly political move by the defeated Free Party to try to intimidate President Hernández as he is forced out of power in Honduras.” This is a shameful and desperate piece of political theater and these accusations are completely baseless. »

Hernández was released after Trump announced he was granting him a “full pardon” following his conviction for conspiring with drug traffickers to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

FORMER WORLD LEADER THANKS TRUMP FOR FORGIVENESS: “YOU CHANGED MY LIFE”

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, second from right, is taken handcuffed to a waiting plane as he is extradited to the United States, at an air force base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 21, 2022. (Elmer Martinez/AP)

Trump said Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly,” implying that his trial was politically motivated or that there were too many prosecutions.

Hernández was convicted in New York of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States and two weapons offenses after a two-week trial.

Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement that partnered with U.S. authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to reduce drug imports, according to the AP. But the judge said the trial evidence proved otherwise and that Hernández used “considerable acting skills” to make it appear as if he was an anti-drug trafficking advocate while deploying his country’s police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.

Hernández later thanked Trump for pardoning him, writing on social media that he had been “wrongly convicted.”

Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández speaks during the opening ceremony of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Monday, November 1, 2021. (Andy Buchanan/AP)

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“My deepest gratitude goes to President @realDonaldTrump for having the courage to stand up for justice at a time when an armed system refused to acknowledge the truth. You looked at the facts, recognized the injustice, and acted with conviction. You changed my life, sir, and I will never forget it,” Hernández wrote on X.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan, Michael Dorgan, Bradford Betz and Associated Press contributed to this report.