- Title: Honduran president denies drug links accusations
- Date: 4th October 2019
- Summary: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS (OCTOBER 3, 2019) (REUTERS) PRESIDENT JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ENTERING FOR NEWS CONFERENCE SEAL FOR THE HONDURAN GOVERNMENT AND PRESIDENCY (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) HONDURAN PRESIDENT JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ, SAYING: "It shouldn't come as a surprise of the barbarities that these criminals say, who are capable of denying the freedoms and lives of thousands of people for many years. How could they then not be capable of saying whatever they need to as revenge, to benefit themselves with reduced penalties." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) HONDURAN PRESIDENT JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ, SAYING: "We trust in the impartiality and the seriousness of the United States' justice system that it can separate fantasy from reality, and that could put up a trial that will avoid a public lynching on the basis of the rule of law."
- Embargoed: 18th October 2019 05:27
- Keywords: President Juan Orlando Hernandez Tegucigalpa Honduras drugs accusations United States
- Location: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS / NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS / NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: Honduras
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001AZOKITJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said on Thursday (October 3) that accusations leveled against him of ties with drug traffickers are lies and an act of revenge by traffickers that he helped capture.
Hernandez' comments at a Tegucigalpa news conferences comes as the trial of the president's brother, Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernandez, began this week in federal court in New York.
The politician, arrested in Miami last year, faces charges of drug conspiracy and possessing illegal weapons. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer has denied the charges.
On Thursday, jurors in the trial heard testimony from former drug trafficker Victor Hugo Diaz Morales, who said he gave $40,000 to Juan Orlando Hernandez's congressional campaign in 2005 at Tony Hernandez's request.
Diaz, who is now in U.S. custody and cooperating with prosecutors, testified that he worked together with Tony Hernandez to traffic about 140,000 kilograms of cocaine to the United States from about 2004 to 2016. Some of that cocaine, Diaz said, came from a Colombian factory partly owned by Tony Hernandez, and was stamped with a "TH" logo.
President Hernandez, who began his second term in January 2018 amid allegations of electoral fraud, has not been charged with a crime. He said drug traffickers and former police and officials who had been targeted by his government are using his brother's trial to retaliate.
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