The trial in New York of Juan Orlando Hernández entered a decisive phase this Friday, March 1, with the testimony of Fabio Lobo, son of his predecessor in the presidency of Honduras, who seems willing to sink the former president, accused of drug trafficking.
Sentenced to 24 years in prison in the United States also for drug trafficking, Fabio Lobo assured that he had paid US$450 thousand for the presidential campaign in the 2013 elections of Juan Orlando Hernández, accused of creating a narco-state in Honduras during his two terms (2014-2022) protecting drug and weapons trafficking.
The first payment of US$200 thousand was made to the sister of the former president (2014-2022) Hilda Hernández. The second, for US$250 thousand, He did it personally to the candidate in his Olancho home in exchange for helping him obtain government contracts for his companies and those of his friends, the leaders of the Los Cachiros cartel, and “logistical information” for drug trafficking.
His son also accused former president Lobo of having received “contributions” from the Cachiros, in exchange for “protection” so that they would not be extradited, but despite the attempt by Hernández’s defense, he did not reveal the amount of the payments or the involvement of his father, president of Honduras from 2010 to 2014, with drug trafficking.
When asked why he had not told this information to the prosecutor’s office when he was arrested in 2015 in Haiti, Lobo, a former Supreme Court judge and lawyer, acknowledged that then “I did not tell the judge” anything about his father having accepted bribes. of drug traffickers.
He did not do so until January 2023 within the framework of his cooperation with the prosecution in exchange for a remission of conviction, he admitted at the insistence of the lawyer, although he said he “does not remember” what he told prosecutors.
“I have no knowledge of how much they paid,” he concluded, visibly upset, after ensuring that his father “had no involvement in his private affairs.”
“I minimized my participation to obtain a lesser sentence” than the 24 years to which he was sentenced, he justified.
Determined to throw dirt on the accused, he recalled that his brother, Tony Hernández – sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for drug trafficking – had received another 4 million dollars from the Valle cartel for his campaign.
The day before, he said that Hernández had also told him that he had “received contributions from some members of the Sinaloa cartel” of the powerful Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.
Dressed in his canary yellow prison jumpsuit and his ankles in shackles, the prosecution’s witness worked with the Los Cachiros cartel that operated mainly in northern Honduras and with Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, he acknowledged.
Read more: Juan Orlando Hernández: Witnesses accuse former president of Honduras of receiving drug money
end of the trial
Judge Kevin Castel hopes that on Monday he can conclude the interrogation of witnesses before the jury meets to define the fate of the former president, very active in the interrogation of witnesses.
If found guilty of the three charges against him – drug trafficking conspiracy and weapons trafficking and possession – Hernández could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.
According to the prosecution, these two men were key in a network that sent 500 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2004 and 2022.
“This case is important for the defendant, for the prosecution and for the United States system itself,” he told the jury at the beginning of Friday’s hearing.
Throughout almost two weeks of trial, a dozen witnesses have revealed the close links between drug trafficking and politics in the Central American country.
Most of them are traffickers who cooperate with justice, but there are also agents from the US anti-drug agency and even the fleeting girlfriend of a boss of the dangerous MS-13 gang.
One of the starkest testimonies was that of Devis Leonel Rivera, leader with his brother Javier of Los Cachiros, – both convicted in the United States – and one of the most bloodthirsty drug traffickers.
Rivera ended up collaborating and surrendering to the DEA as soon as he began to be persecuted by the Hernández government, which in 2014 ordered the first extradition to the United States. Since then, 38 people have been extradited for drug trafficking.
Also read: “He got a lot of money”: Prosecutor’s Office says that Juan Orlando Hernández protected drug traffickers
Despite having bribed JOH with “US$250,000” in exchange for protection, according to Rivera, in 2013 the Honduran authorities seized 118 properties from him.
The former president’s defense maintains that there is no evidence to prove that he received bribes, and attempts to undermine the credibility of the majority of witnesses, who have obtained or expect to obtain benefits from his cooperation.
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