Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, freed from a 45-year U.S. prison sentence by presidential pardon, announced he will travel back to Honduras and seek to have local charges dismissed when he lands this Sunday.
Speaking alongside his wife, Ana Garcia, Hernandez told reporters that the Pandora II case "was a political maneuver from the former government, but at this point, most of the other people related to that trial already got the charges dismissed. So I hope it will be the same for us." He reiterated his innocence and described the legal effort against him as politically driven.
Hernandez faces additional, separate accusations in Honduras - namely fraud and money laundering - which were not addressed by the U.S. presidential pardon and remain active in Honduran courts. Legal observers in Honduras are split on how his local proceedings will unfold, particularly in light of the fact that charges against former President Porfirio Lobo and ex-finance secretary Wilfredo Cerrato were dismissed despite having been investigated under the same Pandora II case, which probes an alleged corruption network and the misappropriation of state funds.
Hernandez, who governed Honduras from 2014 to 2022 - a period during which large numbers of Hondurans fled violence and extortion - said he has already formally requested the arrest warrant against him be dropped. He also indicated expectations that judicial activity will resume in early August.
The former president was extradited to the United States in 2022, where the U.S. Justice Department charged him with using his authority to facilitate the importation of more than 400 metric tons of cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors argued he turned Honduras into a "narco-state" by protecting drug cartels in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, and a Manhattan jury convicted him in 2024.
Hernandez had served less than two years of his sentence when President Trump issued a pardon late last year. The pardon occurred while Honduras was conducting a contentious presidential election. Hernandez commented on U.S. involvement in Honduran politics, saying of Trump’s backing of Honduran businessman and now President Nasry Asfura in November: "That’s the way he does it." He added: "Former governments from the United States have done it differently, but they have done it."
The former president did not rule out the possibility of seeking office again. While he said that a renewed presidential bid was not an immediate plan, he expressed a willingness to share his political experience with the current leadership of his party. "We have a new leadership in our party; we want to support them," he said. "If we can be helpful, we will."
Hernandez expects to land at Palmerola Airport on Sunday, which is roughly 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Honduras's capital. The timing of his return follows a polarized national context and ongoing legal and political questions about how the Pandora II case and separate domestic charges will be resolved.
Observers will watch Honduran courts to see whether the trajectory of dismissals for others connected to Pandora II will extend to Hernandez, and whether the outstanding fraud and money-laundering cases proceed independently of the U.S. pardon.