Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court of running a “narco-state” that helped send South American cocaine to the United States, has been released from federal prison days after President Donald Trump said he would issue a pardon.
Hernández, 57, was released from U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in West Virginia on Monday, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. His lawyer, Renato Stabile, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Hernández, who was in office from 2014 to 2022, was sentenced by a U.S. judge in New York last year to 45 years in prison for trafficking drugs to the United States. U.S. prosecutors accused him of building his political career on millions of dollars in bribes from traffickers in Honduras and Mexico, and of helping move at least 400 tons of cocaine to the United States while protecting traffickers from extradition and prosecution.
Samantha Schmidt contributed to this report.
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