Honduras Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernandez is on trial in New York over drug trafficking charges, and Hondurans are glued to their TVs or computers following it. However, this is a US federal trial, which means that this is not being televised in Honduras. Despite this, people there have been glued to the news.

Hernandez, who served as the president of Honduras for two terms, from 2014 to 2022, has been accused of taking bribes to protect drug traffickers while also taking money from the US that was supposed to aid in the country's anti-drug trafficking efforts and helping stem illegal migration into the US.

New York prosecutors had drug traffickers connected to Hernandez testify against him for a chance at more lenient prison time. The former Honduran president finally took to the stand on Tuesday and Wednesday to defend himself, insisting that he never took any bribes and cooperated with the US in extraditing drug traffickers.

While the trial itself was not televised in the US, let alone in Honduras, what was said during the trial was made public in court documents. These court documents, including pre-trial motions, were dissected by local media as the news suddenly became must-watch-TV in Honduras just because of the Hernandez trial.

Meanwhile, some US-based Honduran citizens or US citizens of Honduran descent were present during the trial. While some of them protested against Hernandez outside the courthouse, there were some who watched it in person and were live-tweeting testimony and summarizing the day's courtroom developments, according to the Associated Press.

"I follow it through social networks, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, because I don't really watch the news and there they give summaries of how the trial is going," Milagros Oviedo, a 20-year-old college student in the capital, told the AP.

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US Prosecutors Say Honduras Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernandez Accepted Bribes from El Chapo

One of the most damning accusations against the former president of Honduras was that he accepted bribes from various drug organizations and protected them. One of these is the notorious Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel.

According to VOA News, prosecutors alleged that while he was still campaigning to be president in 2013, he accepted $1 million from El Chapo himself. He then used that money to bribe officials to manipulate voting results in his favor before using those same tactics to win re-election in 2017. His bribery scandal caused many Hondurans to lose faith in the integrity of their elections.

New York Jury Now Deliberating on the Fate of Honduras Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernandez

After Hernandez took to the stand, the jury has now received instructions from Judge Kevin Castel late Thursday and has already begun deliberations on the fate of the former Honduran president after over two weeks of testimonies.

Barrons reported that the former president could face life imprisonment should he be convicted in his criminal trial, and this was one of the reasons why so many Hondurans have been glued to screens to watch the news.

Hernandez is also accused of facilitating the smuggling of some 500 tons of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela to the US. Prosecutors have called Honduras a "Narco State" under his rule as Hernandez allegedly involved the military, police, and civilians in his drug trafficking activities.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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