In a striking development, the attorney general of Honduras has issued a call for the arrest of the nation’s former president, Juan Orlando Hernández. This move comes shortly after Hernández received a pardon from former U.S. President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez announced that he had instructed Honduran authorities, and requested assistance from Interpol, to act on a 2023 arrest warrant against Hernández. The charges include alleged fraud and money laundering. Hernández, who was convicted in 2024 for his role in facilitating the transportation of massive quantities of cocaine into the United States, was released from a U.S. federal prison merely a week prior.
“Our country has been deeply affected by the grasp of corruption and the criminal networks that have left a significant mark on our society,” Zelaya stated in a translated message he shared on X. Accompanying this message was a photograph of a two-year-old order, signed by a magistrate from the Honduras Supreme Court. The order specifies that it should be enforced “should the accused be released by United States authorities.”
In a related image, former President Juan Orlando Hernández is pictured with President Trump, dated Tuesday, December 2, 2025. The photo was captured by Anna Moneymaker for Getty Images and Dursun Aydemir of Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.
The Pandora case, a significant political scandal in Honduras, implicated numerous officials and politicians. Honduran prosecutors in this case accused government funds of being funneled through a network of NGOs to support political campaigns, including Hernández’s 2013 presidential bid, as reported by The Associated Press.
Dozens of Honduran officials and politicians were implicated in the so-called Pandora case in which Honduran prosecutors alleged government funds were diverted through a network of nongovernmental organizations to political parties, including Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign, according to The Associated Press.
Hernández went from supposed U.S. ally in the war on drugs to the subject of a U.S. extradition request shortly after he left office in 2022, the AP added. He was detained and sent to the U.S. by current President Xiomara Castro of the social democrat LIBRE party.
A lawyer for Hernández, Renato Stabile, told the AP in an email that, “This is obviously a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated Libre party to try to intimidate President Hernandez as they are being kicked out of power in Honduras. It is shameful and a desperate piece of political theatre and these charges are completely baseless.”
Hernández was freed after Trump announced he was issuing him a “full and complete pardon” following his conviction of conspiring with drug traffickers to import more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, second from right, is taken in handcuffs to a waiting aircraft as he is extradited to the United States, at an Air Force base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on April 21, 2022. (Elmer Martinez/AP)
Trump said Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly,” implying that his trial was politically motivated or over-prosecuted.
Hernández was convicted in New York on charges of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S. and two related weapons offenses after a two-week trial.
Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement who teamed up with American authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to reduce drug imports, according to the AP. But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hernández employed “considerable acting skills” to make it seem that he was an anti-drug trafficking crusader while he deployed his nation’s police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.
Hernández later thanked Trump for pardoning him, writing on social media that he was “wrongfully convicted.”
Honduras’ President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks during the opening ceremony of the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday Nov. 1, 2021. (Andy Buchanan/AP)
“My profound gratitude goes to President @realDonaldTrump for having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth. You reviewed the facts, recognized the injustice, and acted with conviction. You changed my life, sir, and I will never forget it,” Hernández wrote on X.
