The son of former Honduran president Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), who was serving a 24-year prison sentence in the United States for drug trafficking, has been released after receiving a sentence reduction, an official source reported on Monday. “Fabio Porfirio Lobo,” 53, “is no longer in BOP (Federal Bureau of Prisons) custody,” noted the U.S. agency in a brief report on the detainee’s release.
Fabio Lobo had been captured in Haiti in an operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in May 2015 and pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in the Southern District Court of New York. On September 5, 2017, Judge Lorna Schofield sentenced him to 24 years in prison.
However, Judge Kevin Castel of the same court, who presided over the trial against former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) for drug trafficking, granted a sentence reduction to Fabio Lobo, who cooperated with his testimony to help convict the former president to 45 years in prison on June 26. Lobo only served nine years.
Around fifty Hondurans have been extradited since 2014 under an extradition treaty that dates back to 1912 between the United States and Honduras.
On August 28, leftist Honduran president Xiomara Castro surprised many by announcing the cancellation of the agreement. Castro argued that the extradition treaty put her government at “risk” of suffering a “new coup d’état.” Her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown in a coup in 2009.
However, the opposition claimed that Castro canceled the treaty to protect members of her government and family. Three days after the president’s decision, her brother-in-law, Carlos Zelaya, resigned as a deputy and secretary of Congress after a video was released showing him meeting with drug lords in 2013 to negotiate financing for his political campaign.
Immediately afterward, Carlos Zelaya’s son, José Manuel Zelaya, resigned as Minister of Defense in solidarity with his father. The U.S. ambassador to Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, said on Monday that the United States is trying to “recover” the treaty.
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