U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he intends to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced last year by a U.S. court to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and possession of “destructive devices,” including machine guns.
Trump explained his decision on social media, stating that “according to many people I greatly respect,” Hernandez had been treated “very harshly and unfairly,” according to PBS.
In March of last year, BBC reported, Hernandez was found guilty of planning to import cocaine into the U.S. and possessing “destructive devices.”
Prosecutors in New York stated that Hernandez had run Honduras as a “narco-state” and received millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for protecting them from the law.
“He established a superhighway for cocaine to the United States, protected with machine guns,” prosecutors said during closing arguments before the sentencing.
As part of his sentence, Hernandez was also fined eight million dollars.
During the court session, the judge described Hernandez as a “two-faced politician, hungry for power.”
