Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez has just revealed some shocking news. He claims that drug cartels were concocting a plan to assassinate him and a fellow politician.
According to FOX News Latino, President Hernandez says that a drug cartel based in Honduras was planning to assassinate him and the U.S. ambassador to the country.
President Hernandez recently spoke to a local radio station about the scare. He states that external sources had revealed a plot by a drug cartel based in eastern Honduras to kill him and Ambassador James Nealon.
"They reported there was evidence of plans for an attack against Ambassador Nealon and against myself by an Atlantic criminal group," Hernandez told a radio station, according to Reuters. "So we told everyone that they had to do their job, investigate and bring proceedings in the case."
The site reports that drug cartels have been using Honduras as a transit point for moving cocaine into the United States.
Since coming into power in 2014, Hernandez has made reducing Honduras’ endemic levels of violent crime and reeling in the power of drug traffickers a major issue of his presidency. Although his administration has been successful in reducing the country’s soaring murder rate and instituted a strict policy against drug cartels, human rights groups have raised concerns about his tactics.
It is not immediately clear what role the cartel played in the alleged assassination plan and Hernandez did not give any more information about the investigation because of the sensitivity issue.
Hernandez’s revelation came only a day after Honduran army captain Santos Orellana claimed that U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents had pressured him o testify against the president's brother over a plot to kill Nealon. Orellana is currently under investigation by the U.S. for allegations of corruption and ties to drug traffickers.
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