A month after former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was arrested on drug trafficking and illegal use of weapons charges, a hearing will be held in Tegucigalpa on Wednesday to decide whether or not to approve a request from the US federal court in New York seeking his extradition.
The hearing will be closely watched in Honduras – where members of the political elite have long evaded justice – and in the United States – where the Justice Department awaits the arrival of one of its most high-profile targets to date.
In all other extradition cases, the judge has presented the decision on the same day as the hearing.
The ruling of the judge overseeing the case could follow legal precedent in extradition cases and approve his shipment to New York, or spark a crisis by rejecting the request.
As far as is publicly known, none of those who have faced extradition have managed to mount a successful defence. Some eight defendants have appealed the judge’s decision to authorize their extradition, but none of those appeals have been successful either.
“There is no doubt that there will be a crowd protesting indignantly,” said legal analyst Raúl Pineda, in the event that the Supreme Court rejects Hernández’s extradition.
Hernandez charged in grand conspiracy
Hernandez, 53, faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years on all three counts. It is unlikely that you will be offered a deal that will reduce your sentence. Nor does it seem likely that he will plead guilty. If he were to go to trial and be found guilty, he would most likely receive life in prison.
Since he was first linked by US prosecutors to drug trafficking in 2019, Hernández has vehemently denied the allegations, citing his role in approving the extradition bill in 2012 and cooperation with US counternarcotics efforts. Since his arrest, his wife, Ana García, has continued with the same line of defense. “We have no doubt that this is revenge by the drug traffickers themselves,” she said earlier this week.
Extradition “is a mere procedure”
Analysts agree that there are few legal recourses for a person accused of drug trafficking in the United States.
“Extradition is a mere procedure, more administrative than judicial,” said Pineda. “The judiciary intervenes but they are simply saying that we want to judge this person and the debate on whether or not that person is guilty will be held in the judicial system of the requesting country,” she added.
The only issues that could have prevented extradition are if Hernandez had already served time for the crime, if he was facing criminal charges in Honduras, or if the statute of limitations had expired, Pineda explained.
Before the arrest, Hernández and his lawyers had alleged an alleged immunity due to his status as a legislator of the Central American Parliament, but the arrest itself disproved that argument.
During the hearing on Wednesday, Honduran lawyers acting on behalf of the US governments will present a pair of affidavits from a prosecutor and a DEA agent who have worked on the case. The affidavits will outline some of the evidence collected against Hernandez, but the evidence itself will not be reviewed.
“What is going to happen on March 16 is that they are going to notify you of the means of evidence they have in the United States, testimonial evidence, audiovisual evidence, expert evidence, if any, etc…”, said Marlon Duarte, Honduran lawyer who has represented people facing extradition.
The evidence would eventually be presented at a future trial, if there is one. In addition, sensitive evidence, such as testimony from protected witnesses, is likely not to be included in the affidavits filed Wednesday.
Bonilla has hinted in the past that if he were arrested, he would take others with him. Bonilla will appear on April 8 for his own extradition hearing.
Hernandez’s legal team will likely attempt to challenge the evidence outlined in the affidavits and present purported exculpatory evidence of its own.
According to Duarte, three previous sentences are enough to set a legal precedent, and in this case, there are many more. “Then the magistrate could not or does not have the possibility of getting out of that scheme when practically it is an already existing jurisprudence that is an order already established by the extradition system itself,” he explained.
In any case, a cassation appeal would be resolved by the majority of the 15 magistrates of the Supreme Court in a few days, which would barely delay Hernández’s extradition to the United States.