Just a few days after a US court found President Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of cocaine trafficking charges, Ana García de Hernández, the ex-first lady of Honduras, announced her intention to seek the presidency.
This past Friday, a federal court in New York found President Hernández guilty of conspiring with narcotics dealers to bring tons of cocaine into the country. His conviction for narcotics trafficking also included the possession and transportation of machine guns.
The former president allegedly accepted large bribes from drug traffickers, abusing his position of power, according to the United States Justice Department. This meant that the ex-president could pursue his political ambitions in Central America with the help of illegal drug and weapons money.
Juan Antonio Hernández, the brother of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán and a former congressman, was on trial in a New York court in 2019, and a key witness from the government was present during his testimony. Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán allegedly gave Juan Orlando Hernández $1 million to back his 2013 presidential campaign in exchange for security, as stated by the witness.
A brother and a colleague of the future president—armed with machine guns—were sent by him to collect El Chapo’s ransom.
In October 2019, Juan Antonio Hernández was found guilty of drug trafficking and firearm charges by a federal court in New York. He was given a life term in jail in March of 2021.
The presidential mansion in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital, was raided in February 2022, just three months after he left office. He was returned to the US in April of 2022 as an extraditee.
His lawyer, Renato Stabile, claims that he plans to appeal his life sentence and is contemplating the possibility of doing so.
The member from the governing LIBRE party, Marco Eliud Girón, claimed that García de Hernández may run for office, but he stressed that she was aware of her husband’s ties to drug lords.
He implied that she wanted to avoid legal trouble, which is why she decided to enter politics.
