Honduran President Claims Recordings Discredit Drug Allegations

Tegucigalpa, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Mar, 2021 ) :The president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, claimed on Wednesday that he had recordings made by US anti-drug agents which contradicted accusations linking him to narcotics traffickers.

During the New York trial of an alleged Hernandez associate, US prosecutors said the president had helped smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States.

Hernandez has previously denied the allegations, however the alleged associate, Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, was found guilty of drug trafficking last week at trial in New York.

"It is no longer possible to deny that the drug traffickers are giving false testimony because the truth is documented, in the form of secret recordings, and they were presented by the DEA in a trial," said the president in a statement to the press.

He claimed the alleged recordings indicate the traffickers were frustrated by his unwillingness to be corrupted by them.

The president's brother, Tony Hernandez, was convicted of large-scale drug trafficking at a New York trial in 2019.

President Hernandez was linked to drug trafficking at his brother's trial by Leonel Rivera, the leader of a Honduran drug trafficking gang called "Los Cachiros."Rivera said the president received millions of Dollars in bribes from drug traffickers to protect the cocaine shipments to the United States.

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