Honduran court dismisses corruption charges against former president Juan Orlando Hernández

A Honduran court permanently dismissed corruption charges against former president Juan Orlando Hernández, ending a case over the alleged diversion of $2 million in public funds to finance his 2013 presidential campaign.

Hernández, 57, governed Honduras from 2014 to 2022. Prosecutors had sought to take him to trial for fraud and money laundering and to keep him in preventive detention. But a judge ruled that Hernández had neither authorized nor administered the funds, which were disbursed while he served as president of Congress.

Carlos Silva, a spokesperson for the judiciary, said Hernández had not experienced an increase in his assets. The court therefore issued a final dismissal and announced that the former president would receive his release document on Tuesday.

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Today this chapter of political persecution closes. We closed it in the United States, and this one is closing too.

Outside the court in Tegucigalpa, Hernández said: “Today this chapter of political persecution closes. We closed it in the United States, and this one is closing too.” He had described the Honduran case as a witch hunt and political persecution, as he also did after his 45-year U.S. prison sentence for drug trafficking was overturned on orders from Donald Trump in late 2025.

The ruling drew criticism from anticorruption activist Gabriela Blen, who told AFP that it was “an affront to all Hondurans who are victims of corruption.” Former president Porfirio Lobo had already been cleared in the same case, which has produced no convictions. Hernández now seeks to recover 131 family properties confiscated after his extradition to the United States. A federal court in New York convicted him in 2024 of conspiring to bring hundreds of tons of cocaine into the country, accusing him of working with traffickers including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

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An affront to all Hondurans who are victims of corruption.