(MENAFN) US President Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was ensnared in a “setup” orchestrated by the administration of Joe Biden, according to reports.

"I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup. I don't mean Biden. Look, Biden didn't know he was alive, but it was the people that surround the Resolute Desk, surround Biden when he was there," Trump said during an exchange with reporters on Air Force One.

"He was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country, and they said it was a Biden administration setup. And I looked at the facts, and I agreed with them," he added.

Trump announced plans to pardon Hernandez on Friday, just days before Honduran voters were scheduled to go to the polls on Sunday.

Hernandez, who led Honduras from 2014 to 2022, was sentenced in the United States in June 2024 to 45 years in prison following a conviction on drug trafficking and firearms charges.

Prosecutors claimed he played a central role in moving more than 400 tons of cocaine into the US, amounting to billions of individual doses.

While Trump has not provided evidence to substantiate his assertion that Hernandez’s prosecution was politically motivated, his pardon announcement coincided with his endorsement of a conservative Honduran presidential candidate. Both the candidate and Hernandez are affiliated with Honduras’s National Party.

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