The Justice of Honduras ruled this Monday that former president Juan Orlando Hernández will be tried in freedom and by an ordinary court, instead of the Supreme Court as initially planned, for the alleged crimes of money laundering and fraud against the State.
Read more Prenderse fuego: the podcast that recovers the voice of Pedro Lemebel
This was determined by the Criminal Court in matters of Organized Crime, Environment, and Corruption, which ordered precautionary measures that the former president cannot leave the country and remains “under the care and supervision” of his defense team “who must submit a weekly report on his condition,” as well as a sworn bond.
“Juan Orlando Hernández will remain under the care and supervision of his defense team, which must present a weekly report on his legal situation,” explained the spokesperson of the Judiciary, Carlos Silva, in statements to the media collected by the newspaper El Heraldo.
The sworn bond, Silva explained, means that “a record must be issued by the procedural parties, where the accused (…) must swear and indicate that he will submit to the process.”
The initial hearing was set for next August 12 in the sixth courtroom of the Sentencing Court, according to a message published on social media by the Honduran Judiciary.
This ordinary court will be in charge of the case, after the same Monday the appeal filed last Friday by Hernández’s defense to keep the case in the Supreme Court of Justice was declared “without merit.”
It was in October 2023 when the Special Prosecutor’s Unit against Corruption Networks in the country included Hernández in the file of the Pandora II case, arguing that he was among the alleged beneficiaries of a structure that would have diverted state resources to political-electoral activities.
Specifically, the former ruler was accused ‘in absentia’ (in absence) by the State Prosecutor’s Office on October 11, 2023, for the crimes of money laundering and fraud against the State due to the alleged diversion of more than 62 million lempiras (about US$ 2,310,000) for his political campaign in 2013 when he first aspired to the Presidency.
It is worth remembering that Hernández returned to his country on July 26 after a journey of more than four years since his extradition to the United States, subsequent 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, and finally, the pardon he received at the end of last year from the hands of the U.S. president, Donald Trump.
The sentence, issued in June 2024 after his arrest two years earlier, proved his links with drug cartels to facilitate the transport of up to 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the United States.
Read more With Antonia Giesen and Francisco Melo: they release the trailer of the new León and Cociña film
