President Donald Trump has pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was released from a US prison where he was serving a 45-year sentence on drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Hernandez was released from prison in Hazelton, West Virginia, on Monday, according to a Federal Bureau of Prisons registry.
A White House official confirmed on Tuesday that Trump had pardoned Hernandez.
Hernandez's wife, Ana Garcia, said in a social media post earlier that Hernandez was released after he was granted a pardon by Trump.
"After nearly four years of pain, waiting, and difficult trials, my husband Juan Orlando Hernandez RETURNED to being a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump," Garcia said.
A Manhattan jury found Hernandez guilty in March 2024 of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect US-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat.
Mr Trump had claimed that the investigation was a "[former US President Joe] Biden administration set up.
"They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country," Trump said.
The release came days after a presidential election in Honduras, in which Trump has backed presidential candidate Nasry Asfura of the conservative National Party, who is facing off with liberal Salvador Nasralla.
The latest vote count showed both candidates practically tied holding just under 40% of the vote.
Asfura's party forged a close partnership with Washington under Hernandez, who governed from 2014 to 2022 and was arrested shortly after leaving office.
Hernandez was sentenced in June last year and called his conviction wrongful.
Honduras has been governed since 2021 by President Xiomara Castro, who has forged close ties with Cuba and Venezuela, two countries mired in deep economic and human rights crises whose governments the Trump administration sees as dictatorships and has repeatedly criticized.
Whichever candidate wins a simple majority on Sunday will govern Honduras between 2026 and 2030. Some political analysts fear more than one candidate could claim victory.
The Organization of American States and Washington have raised concerns about Honduras' electoral process and said they are monitoring the election closely.
