Honduras’s attorney general said he has issued an arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was freed from US federal prison last week after being pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez said on X Monday that he had asked government agencies and global police agency Interpol to arrest Hernández, who is accused of money laundering and fraud.

“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have profoundly marked the life of our country,” Zelaya said.

His post included a photo of the Supreme Court’s arrest order which was dated Nov. 28, the same day Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández –– a move that drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle in both the US and Honduras.

President of Honduras from 2014 until 2022, Hernández was convicted and sentenced last year to 45 years in federal prison and given an $8 million fine by a US judge for drug trafficking offenses.

Hernández’s domestic charges are in connection with a massive anti-corruption investigation in Honduras known as Pandora II, a scheme that implicated top politicians, government officials and businesspeople in the country. Prosecutors allege Hernández illegally siphoned about $2.4 million in a kickback from public contracts for his 2013 campaign.

In a statement to CNN, Hernandez’s attorney Renato Stabile said Hernández’s arrest warrant was a political play by Honduras’s ruling Libre party – a rival of the conservative National Party he once led.

“This is obviously a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated radical left Libre party as they are being forced out of power by the people of Honduras. It is shameful and desperate piece of political theatre and these charges are completely baseless,” Stabile said.

Luis Santos, the director of Honduras’ Specialized Unit against Corruption Crimes, told CNN a few days ago that Hernández had “an open case in the Supreme Court of Justice for money laundering and fraud,” and that an earlier international arrest warrant had been in the possession of the Ministry of Security and Interpol since September 2023.

Santos added that if Hernández did not return to Honduras, they would request his extradition from the United States.

Trump formally pardoned Hernández on Dec. 3, telling reporters at the White House “I feel pretty good about it,” and calling the prosecution a “Biden horrible witch hunt.”

The move was criticized by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, who questioned Trump’s decision to pardon someone with a drug trafficking conviction when his administration has been so focused on disrupting drug trafficking in Latin America, ramping up military activity and launching controversial strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

US prosecutors had accused Hernández of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as President as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. In exchange, prosecutors said, Hernández received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his political rise.

Hernández had insisted he was innocent, claiming his trial was “rigged” and that it relied on the accusations of criminals who sought revenge against him.

The former Honduran leader thanked Trump for “having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth,” in an X post on Wednesday. (CNN)

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