Former president of Honduras convicted in US of aiding drug traffickers
Former president of Honduras convicted in US of aiding drug traffickers
apnews.com
Former president of Honduras convicted in US of aiding drug traffickers
10 comments
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Hernandez, 55, who served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people, patted a defense attorney, Renato Stabile, on the back as they stood along with everyone else in the courtroom while the jurors filed out after the reading of the verdict.
Instead, he chose to abuse his office and country for his own personal gain and partnered with some of the largest and most violent drug trafficking organizations in the world to transport tons of cocaine to the United States.”
U.S. prosecutors accused Hernandez of working with drug traffickers as long ago as 2004, saying he took millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig told the jury that a corrupt Hernandez “paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States.”
Hernandez, wearing a suit throughout the trial, was mostly dispassionate as he testified through an interpreter, repeatedly saying “no sir” as he was asked if he ever paid bribes or promised to protect traffickers from extradition to the U.S.
His brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced to life in 2021 in Manhattan federal court for his own conviction on drug charges.
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Is it bad that I, an American citizen, consider this small potatoes?
Edit: guess so. Oh well. I’m too worried about my own country becoming a theocratic dictatorship. Even major drug issues like this seem almost quaint in comparison.
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What a waste of taxpayer money to keep drugs expensive for poor people.
The ruling class has unfettered access to all the drugs it wants. Just look at Hunter Biden.
10 comments
Cool, so the US now completely accepts the ability to try foreign leaders and past foreign leaders in a domestic court versus before it having to go to the ICC/Hague.
So let's get Dubya (W Bush) tried for war crimes. And of course Cheney. And Obama for that matter. And Trump. And Biden. Heck most of the US leadership of the past many decades are guilty of breaching international conventions and aiding what are now terrorists. Remember who trained Osama Bin Laden??? Right to jail. Apparently.
Or are we still supposed to pretend that the rules only apply to others and that's not hypocrisy somehow...
Why would you compare US presidents to what this guy did? Wasn't he accused of personally killing like 50 people in Honduras? This is not the guy to compare.
Because that's not how the law works. If the law was it's only illegal to kill 50 people, or even 25 people, then sure that's the bar. But in the US you get thrown in prison for 20 years for killing 1 person. You get thrown in jail for 20 years for accidentally killing, or not doing something to prevent a killing, or if you were part of an organized group that did commit such a crime.
To apply US laws equally, a supposed bastion of American democracy and justice, it's a very easy argument to make.
Also many people after the fake WMD scandal called for the US leadership to be tried. And the US very immediately said no, they don't try foreign government leaders and you can't try ours except in the world courts. Oh, and if you do try and convict the US in the Hague, the US has a law on the books now that allows it to invade the Netherlands sovereignty and break out their people. The court is only valid if not used against America!
The US being one of the most warmongering nations in the history of the world needs to be held accountable.