Honduras Just Killed Its Best Drug War Weapon

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The Honduran government announced that it plans to end its extradition agreement with the United States in a move that will scupper the country’s ability to tackle drug trafficking and hold drug bosses to account.

President Xiomara Castro made the announcement on X last week, hours after US Ambassador to Honduras Laura Dogu called out senior members of the Honduran government, including Castro’s nephew and Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, for meeting a Venezuelan government minister indicted by the United States for drug trafficking.

“We are very concerned about what has happened in Venezuela,” Dogu told reporters. “It was surprising for me to see the defense minister and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff sitting next to a drug trafficker.”

SEE ALSO: How His Own Extradition Policy Exposed the Honduras President

Castro later characterized the ambassador’s comments as an attack against the armed forces and said that a plan was being hatched against her administration. Several senior members of the government suggested that the United States intended to use extradition as a tool to undermine the military and as a political weapon against government officials.

Drug traffickers facing trial in the United States have made frequent references to President Castro’s family in their previous testimonies. Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, former leader of the once-feared Cachiros drug trafficking group, has repeatedly claimed that former President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, Castro’s husband, accepted bribes when he was in office. He also alleged that Mel’s brother Carlos Zelaya used a clandestine airstrip in Olancho to bring cocaine into Honduras during that time.

Both Zelayas denied these allegations. But just days after President Castro signaled her intention to withdraw the extradition agreement, Carlos Zelaya told local press that he had met with drug traffickers that he described as “businessmen” in 2013. He also resigned from his post as secretary of the national congress.

His son, Zelaya Rosales, resigned as defense minister soon after, in what he said was an attempt to let an investigation into his father proceed unhindered.

Honduras has had an extradition agreement with the United States since 1912, though the constitution originally blocked the country from extraditing its own citizens. That changed in 2013, when Juan Orlando Hernández, then president of Congress, pushed through a constitutional reform that expanded the government’s extradition powers.

As president, Hernández used extradition to send some of Honduras’ most powerful drug traffickers, including members of the Cachiros and Valles, to face justice in the United States. After completing his presidency, Hernández himself was extradited and ultimately sentenced to 45 years in jail for drug trafficking.

A US State Department official told InSight Crime that extradition was a valuable tool that benefited the people of Honduras and the United States. “We strongly urge the Government of Honduras to reconsider this decision, as it will hurt efforts by Honduras and the United States to jointly fight drug trafficking and bring criminals to justice,” they said.

A six-month notice period means that, unless Castro changes course, the extradition agreement will lapse on 28 February 2025.

InSight Crime Analysis The cancelation of extradition by the Castro government could be aimed at protecting key government officials from prosecution in the United States, and will certainly frustrate the ability of both countries to hold transnational organized crime groups to account.

The naming of the president’s close relatives during previous drug trafficking trials in the United States has likely rattled the family. The convictions of Honduran traffickers and politicians, including that of Hernández earlier this year, relied heavily on witness testimony over physical evidence, and have consistently resulted in guilty verdicts.

Foreign Affairs Minister Enrique Reina stressed that the end of extradition was not aimed at protecting individuals close to the current government and said most of the extradition requests the government had received were for members of the opposition National Party.

SEE ALSO: Juan Orlando Hernández Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Drug Trafficking

Mel Zelaya had previously told reporters that there was “no possibility” of canceling the extradition agreement. Castro’s Libre party had previously celebrated the extradition of Hernández, who is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence.

Experts consulted by InSight Crime said that while extradition had not stopped the movement of drugs through the country, it had been effective in attacking the country’s largest criminal groups.

“We’re going backwards in giant steps,” a Honduran official, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press, told InSight Crime. The judicial system “does not have the capacity to keep a high-level trafficker in prison for a day, let alone prosecute them.”

Lester Ramírez, a professor at the Central American Technological University, told InSight Crime that there was “not the autonomy nor the resources to investigate, and most importantly prosecute” serious organized crime cases in Honduras.

In a letter written by Hernández and published by his wife, he said that extradition was a “crucial instrument” in the fight against organized crime. He also told Honduran journalist Oscar Estrada that he did not regret implementing extradition despite his lengthy prison sentence, and said that Honduras’ “institutional weakness and the strength of cartels” made the help of the United States necessary.

Featured Image: The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, addresses her supporters during a protest demanding that Congress see through its constitutional mandate to elect new officials to the Attorney General’s office in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Credit: Reuters / Fredy Rodríguez

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