Former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandezsentenced this Wednesday to 45 years in prison and 5 probation for the main crime of drug traffickingis the latest in a long line of leaders Latin American politicians who end their days in a court or a prison USA -or tried in their country after being extradited by the United States- for crimes related to drugs or corruption.
The first high-level Latin American tried in the US was Manuel Antonio Noriega -dictator of Panama between 1983 and 1989 -, who in 1992 was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and after him came former rulers of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela.
This list does not include the numerous ‘bosses‘civilians, without political responsibilities, who also ended up tried in that North American country, like the Mexican Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán or the Colombian Dairo Antonio Úsuga, ‘Otoniel’, to name the best known.
–Manuel Antonio Noriegasoldier and “strong man” of Panama between 1983 and 1989. He was tried in Miami and sentenced to 40 years, of which he spent 17 in a prison in Florida, and later completed his sentence in France and in his country.
–Ricardo Martinelli, Former President of the Republic (2009-2014) was arrested in the US and extradited to Panama in 2017 where he was imprisoned. Tried and declared “not guilty” in 2019 for the ‘Escuchas’ case, the sentence was annulled the following year and the trial was ordered to be repeated in 2021 after which he was acquitted.
In 2023 he was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in prison and a fine of 19.2 million dollars for the ‘New Business’ case. The following year, after the conviction was declared final, he took refuge in the Nicaraguan Embassy, a country that granted him asylum, although a Panamanian court ordered his preventive detention.
-The children of the previous one, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelliwere sentenced in May 2022 in the United States to three years in prison and two years of supervised release, as well as a fine of $250,000 after they pleaded guilty in a New York court the previous December for laundering $28 million. dollars in a plot related to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
Both reached an agreement with the US Government for the payment of 19 million dollars. They were released for good behavior on January 25, 2023 and that same day they were deported to Panama.
Juan Orlando Hernandez, Former president of Honduras (2014-22), he was extradited to the United States on April 21, 2022, days after his presidential replacement. He was accused of using Mexican drug money ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán to commit electoral fraud in two elections in exchange for being part of a conspiracy to transport more than 500 tons of cocaine to the United States. He was sent to the federal prison in Brooklyn.
The jury trial was held on February 20, 2024, which declared him guilty on March 8 of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons, and ended this Wednesday with his sentence to 45 years in prison and five years on supervised release.
The mandatary Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) was imprisoned in the United States, where he served a 70-month sentence for money laundering after being extradited in 2013.
On March 18 of that year, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money derived from bribes of $2.5 million from the Government of Taiwan and on May 22, he was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison, as well as the return of the money received. He was released from prison on February 25, 2015 and returned to his country.
Genaro García Lunaformer Secretary of Public Security of Mexico (2006-2012) and accused in 2018 of receiving bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Dallas in December 2019, when he was accused of three counts of conspiring to traffic cocaine to the United States and for false testimonies.
The trial against him was held between January and February 2023. The jury found him guilty of drug trafficking and corruption on the 21st of that last month. Sentencing has been postponed four times and is now expected on October 9, 2024.
Cliver Alcalá Laces, former general of the Venezuelan Army, surrendered to DEA agents in Colombia on March 27, 2020, a day after the US Government filed narcoterrorism charges against Maduro and other perpetrators, including him. The US offered a reward of 10 million dollars.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him by a New York judge. In mid-2023, he negotiated a deal with prosecutors in exchange for favorable treatment. On February 27, 2024, a pre-sentencing hearing began in New York, accused of six counts of narcoterrorism, support for terrorism, cocaine smuggling, and weapons possession.
On April 8, he was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison for providing material and firearms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for drug trafficking purposes.
The case of the president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) is different from the previous ones because he has not been tried in the United States, but it was the United States that extradited him to his country, where he was tried there for receiving bribes of more than 30 million dollars from the Brazilian company Odebrecht. .
It was in February 2023 when the United States Department of State granted his extradition and in April of that year he was tried in Peru and entered the Barbadillo prison (Lima) to serve preventive detention for a period of 18 months.
(With information from EFE)
