Honduras Just Killed Its Best Weapon in the Drug War

The Honduran government has announced it will terminate its extradition agreement with the United States, a move that will undermine the country’s ability to tackle drug trafficking and hold drug bosses accountable.

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

“We are very concerned about what happened in Venezuela,” Dogu told reporters. “It was a surprise to 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 Honduras’ president

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

Drug traffickers on trial in the United States have often referred to President Castro’s family in their past testimony. Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, former leader of the once feared Cachiros drug trafficking ring, has repeatedly alleged that former President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, Castro’s husband, accepted bribes while in office. He also alleged that Mel’s brother Carlos Zelaya used a secret airstrip in Olancho at the time to smuggle cocaine into Honduras.

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

His son, Zelaya Rosales, resigned as defense minister shortly afterward in what he described as an attempt to allow the investigation into his father to proceed unhindered.

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

As president, Hernández used extradition to bring some of Honduras’ most powerful drug traffickers, including members of the Cachiros and Valles, to trial in the United States. After his presidency, Hernández himself was extradited and eventually sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking.

A U.S. 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 harm the efforts of Honduras and the United States to jointly combat drug trafficking and bring criminals to justice,” they said.

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

InSight Crime Analysis

The Castro government’s cancellation of the extradition could be intended to shield key government officials from prosecution in the United States. It would certainly render both countries unaccountable to transnational organized crime groups.

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

Foreign Minister Enrique Reina stressed that the halt to extradition was not intended to protect individuals close to the current government. He said that 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 earlier told reporters there was “no possibility” of canceling the extradition deal. Castro’s Libre party had earlier celebrated the extradition of Hernández, who is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence.

According to experts consulted by InSight Crime, while extradition has not stopped drug trafficking in the country, it has proven effective in tackling the country’s largest criminal gangs.

“We are taking giant steps backwards,” a Honduran official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, told InSight Crime. The justice system “does not have the capacity to keep a high-level trafficker in jail for a day, let alone prosecute them.”

Lester Ramírez, a professor at the Central American Technological University, told InSight Crime that in Honduras “there is neither the autonomy nor the resources to investigate and, more importantly, prosecute serious cases of organized crime.”

In a letter sent from prison, former President Hernández said extradition was a “crucial tool” in the fight against organized crime. He also told Honduran journalist Oscar Estrada that he did not regret carrying out the extradition despite his long prison sentence, and said Honduras’ “institutional weakness and the strength of cartels” made the United States’ help necessary.

Main image: Honduras President Xiomara Castro addresses her supporters during a protest demanding that Congress fulfill its constitutional mandate to elect new officials to the attorney general’s office in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Credit: Reuters/Fredy Rodríguez