Dec 2 (Reuters) – Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was released from prison in the United States on Monday, where he was serving a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking and firearms charges, a Federal Bureau of Prisons registry showed.
Hernandez’s wife, Ana Garcia, said in a social media post that Hernandez was released after he was granted a pardon by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“After nearly four years of pain, waiting, and difficult trials, my husband Juan Orlando Hernandez RETURNED to being a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,” Garcia said.
The release came days after a presidential election in Honduras, in which Trump has backed presidential candidate Nasry Asfura of the conservative National Party, who is facing off with liberal Salvador Nasralla.
The latest vote count showed both candidates practically tied holding just under 40% of the vote.
Asfura’s party forged a close partnership with Washington under Hernandez, who governed from 2014 to 2022 and was arrested shortly after leaving office.
Hernandez was sentenced in June last year and called his conviction wrongful.
(Reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon)
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