Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence for drug conspiracy, received ‘full and unconditional pardon’, lawyer says.
Authorities in the United States have released former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a lengthy prison sentence for drug trafficking, after US President Donald Trump pardoned him.
Hernandez’s lawyer, Renato Stabile, confirmed that the former Honduran president was freed on Tuesday, a day after being pardoned.
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“President Trump has issued a full and unconditional pardon, signed, Dec 1, 2025. President Hernandez was released from prison early this morning,” Stabile told Al Jazeera in an email.
A federal prison database showed that Hernandez was released from a detention centre in West Virginia after spending more than three years in US jail.
Last year, Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years for involvement in a scheme to export cocaine in the US, which prosecutors described as “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world”.
Trump announced plans to pardon the former Honduran president last week as he called for the people in the Central American country to back right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a member of Hernandez’s party.
“I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.
“This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success.”
Hernandez was convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug-trafficking organisations over 18 years, which he used to fuel his rise in politics.
“During his political career, Hernandez abused his powerful positions and authority in Honduras to facilitate the importation of over 400 tons of cocaine into the US,” the US Justice Department said after he was sentenced last year.
“Hernandez’s co-conspirators were armed with machine guns and destructive devices, including AK-47s, AR-15s, and grenade launchers, which they used to protect their massive cocaine loads as they transited across Honduras on their way to the United States, protect the money they made from the eventual sale of this cocaine, and guard their drug-trafficking territory from rivals.”
During his trial, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug dealers, arguing that he cracked down on the narcotics trade and citing his administration’s cooperation with the US military.
Trump’s pardon of Hernandez comes at a time when his administration is carrying out deadly air strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean that it says are carrying drugs – a campaign that critics say violates domestic and international law.
Trump has also been issuing threats against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro after accusing him without evidence of leading a drug cartel that the US labelled as a “terrorist” group.
Washington has also been ramping up its military presence in the Caribbean in what it calls an anti-drug trafficking operation, which raised speculations about a possible war to topple Maduro.
Pardoning Hernandez has intensified criticism of the Trump administration’s approach to Latin America.
“As President, Juan Orlando Hernandez personally helped the Sinaloa Cartel and El Chapo traffic deadly drugs into the United States. Drugs that killed Americans,” Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto said in a social media post on Monday.
“But instead of standing with law enforcement who brought Hernandez to justice, Trump is letting this criminal go free.”
In Honduras, an election took place on Sunday, but the race is still too close to call, with sports journalist Salvador Nasralla leading against Asfura by only hundreds of votes.
Trump – who continues to falsely claim that his 2020 election loss to former US President Joe Biden was due to widespread fraud – is already casting doubt over the outcome of the vote in Honduras.
“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”