TEGUCIALPA, HONDURAS.- The President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was one of the first to respond after the conviction of Geovanny Fuentes on drug trafficking allegations was announced in a New York court this Monday and after a media trial in which the name of the ruler came directly to light.
“Any story about the fight against drug trafficking in Honduras that omits the unprecedented 95% reduction (official US data) we have achieved is generally just a means for dramatic headlines to defeat the false testimony of the drug traffickers we report promote it, ”he said. the president on Twitter.
In fact, Hernández responded a few minutes after being told that the jurors, who had left to deliberate since last Friday, had the verdict, the outcome still unknown.
Seconds after the report from the ruler, the journalist Emily Palmer, which covers the process through the media The New York Times, upheld the guilty verdict against the Honduran kingpin on three charges related to drug trafficking.
The president published his message first in English and then in Spanish, as was customary in his official record to refer to the trial whenever his name was mentioned directly or indirectly.
The president has repeatedly defended himself against the explicit mention of his name in the Fuentes trial, when allegations were made of alleged meetings between the president and drug lords.
Likewise, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York assured that Hernández received bribes from drug traffickers and was even a partner in a drug lab.
The president, for his part, insists that this story is part of a strategy adopted by former drug trafficking bosses as revenge for waging a brutal fight against drugs in his government and allowing drug traffickers to be extradited to the United States. States.
“The unusual factor is that the drug traffickers have found what they believe is the magic key, a tool so wicked and powerful that God put it in the Bible, namely, you will not bear false testimony against your neighbor,” said Hernández. mid-February.
He appreciated that “ for the forces of evil even the word of the Lord does not prevent them from seizing the magic key, believing that they can destroy all those who fight against them and thereby convince the other presidents not to continue with it. to go. fight. ”