Honduras issues arrest warrant for ex-president Hernandez after US pardon

The apprehension warrant for the country’s erstwhile president comes amid a closely-fought election.

Honduras’s apical authoritative has issued an planetary apprehension warrant for erstwhile President Juan Orlando Hernandez, intensifying ineligible and governmental turmoil conscionable days aft the ex-leader walked escaped from a United States prison.

Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya announced the determination connected Monday successful a station connected X, saying helium instructed the Agencia Técnica de Investigación Criminal, the main investigative assemblage of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and urged Interpol “to execute the planetary apprehension warrant against erstwhile President Juan Orlando Hernández”.

Hemos sido lacerados por los tentáculos de la corrupción y por las redes criminales que han marcado profundamente la vida de nuestro país. Es por ello que en el marco del Día Internacional Contra la Corrupción que se conmemora mañana 9 de diciembre, informo al pueblo hondureño… pic.twitter.com/8V4cpyrKq2

— Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez (@jaza_hn) December 8, 2025

Zelaya’s announcement comes arsenic Hernandez was released from a 45-year situation condemnation successful the US aft President Donald Trump pardoned him.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4Acting US Attorney Alina Habba resigns New Jersey station amid controversy
• list 2 of 4Waymo runs into information concerns and contention arsenic it expands successful the US
• list 3 of 4US tariffs ruin acquisition dreams for children successful India’s diamond hub
• list 4 of 4Ukraine’s allies accidental efforts to extremity Russia’s warfare astatine ‘critical moment’

Hernandez’s wife, who insists helium is innocent, said helium volition not instrumentality to Honduras instantly owed to information concerns and that helium is presently successful a “safe place” successful the US.

Hernandez was extradited to the US successful 2022, wherever New York prosecutors had accused him of 3 drug- and weapons-related offences and alleged helium utilized his presidency to alteration Honduras into a “narco-state”.

US prosecutors aboriginal secured a conviction, saying Hernandez played a cardinal relation successful moving cocaine done Honduras and onward to the United States. He was handed a 45-year situation condemnation connected the backmost of “one of the largest and astir convulsive cause trafficking conspiracies successful the world”, according to prosecutors.

At the aforesaid time, Hernandez has been astatine the centre of investigations successful his state that person targeted existent and erstwhile politicians suspected of diverting nationalist money. In 2023, on with respective erstwhile officials, helium was charged with engagement successful the alleged misappropriation of much than $12m successful authorities funds for his governmental campaign.

Trump’s determination to pardon Hernandez came arsenic helium urged Hondurans to rally down statesmanlike campaigner Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a subordinate of Hernandez’s right-wing National Party, successful the country’s November 30 presidential election.

“I volition beryllium granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to galore radical that I greatly respect, treated precise harshly and unfairly”, Trump wrote successful a societal media station past week.

With 97 percent of ballots counted, Asfura held 40.52 percent of the vote, remaining up of centrist rival Salvador Nasralla by astir 42,100 votes.

The tally had already been halted temporarily connected Friday with 88 percent of ballots processed. According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), astir 16 percent of tally sheets contained irregularities requiring further review, an contented it attributed to the institution managing the vote-counting system.

International observers person urged authorities to velocity up the counting process and instrumentality steps to reassure voters of its integrity.