Investigan al presidente de Honduras por narcotráfico / Honduran president target of U.S. investigation, court filings show
Fiscales estadounidenses están investigando al presidente hondureño Juan Orlando Hernández, reveló un nuevo documento judicial, lo que aumenta la presión sobre un mandatario al que los fiscales norteamericanos ya han acusado en la corte de participar en el sangriento tráfico de drogas en su país.
En el documento, presentado la noche del viernes en el Distrito Sur de Nueva York en el caso del presunto narcotraficante Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, los fiscales estadounidenses revelaron que el propio Hernández es objeto de una investigación, lo mismo que otros funcionarios “de alto rango”.
El gobierno de Honduras no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios realizados por la agencia Reuters. Hernández ha negado rotundamente cualquier vínculo con los cárteles de la droga.
La del viernes es la última acusación de esta naturaleza presentada contra el mandatario centroamericano. Alrededor de un mes antes, los mismos fiscales proveyeron otros detalles de la supuesta relación entre Hernández y Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, un presunto narcotraficante hondureño detenido en Miami el pasado marzo.
Honduran president target of U.S. investigation, court filings show
(Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors are investigating Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, according to a new court filing, piling pressure on a leader who prosecutors have already accused of participation in the nation’s bloody narcotics trade.
In a document filed Friday night in the Southern District of New York in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, an alleged Honduran drug-trafficker, federal prosecutors said Hernandez himself was the target of an investigation, along with other “high-ranking officials.”
They did not say what the investigation concerned. But in the filing they accused Hernandez, who has been president since 2014, of using Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.”
Last month, U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing related to the same case that Hernandez had by 2013 “accepted millions of dollars in drug-trafficking proceeds and, in exchange, promised drug traffickers protection from prosecutors, law enforcement, and (later) extradition to the United States.”
The prosecutors said that assistance from the Honduran government in its investigations “has hardly been forthcoming,” accusing the Honduran government of providing “limited records” and not honoring extradition requests for potential witnesses against the president.