FILE PHOTO: Honduras former President Juan Orlando Hernandez is escorted by authorities as he walks towards a plane of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for his extradition to the United States, to face a trial on drug trafficking and arms possession charges, at the Hernan Acosta Mejia Air Force base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras April 21, 2022. REUTERS/Fredy Rodriguez/ File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Honduras' President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks during a joint message with U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acting Secretary Chad Wolf (not pictured), at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa, Honduras January 9, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera/File Photo

By Jeff Mason and Diego Oré

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, who has painted himself as a warrior against illegal drugs, pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was released from a U.S. prison where he was serving a 45-year sentence on drug trafficking and firearms charges.

Trump signed the pardon for Hernandez on Monday night, a White House official said. He was released from prison in Hazelton, West Virginia, on Monday, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons registry.

The U.S. president, who has cited the dangers of illegal drug flows from Latin America as justification for a series of U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean and a military buildup near Venezuela, pledged on Friday to pardon Hernandez, who he said had been treated unfairly.

A Manhattan jury found Hernandez guilty in March 2024 of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect U.S.-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat. He was sentenced in June last year. Hernandez's wife, Ana Garcia, confirmed in a social media post that Hernandez had been released.

"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.

At his sentencing, Hernandez said he was the victim of drug dealers who testified against him after he helped extradite them from Honduras to the United States. “This was a political persecution by drug traffickers and politicians," Hernandez said then.

Hernandez wrote a long letter to Trump in which he called himself a political target of the Biden-Harris administration, comparing himself to the former New York businessman, who faced multiple prosecutions after his first term in office, led in part by President Joe Biden's Justice Department.

The White House official said Trump had not seen the letter before announcing his intent to pardon Hernandez on Friday.

Roger Stone, a conservative commentator and longtime Trump ally, had for months advocated for Hernandez's release, claiming that the former Honduras president was framed and the victim of a politically charged "persecution" by the Biden administration. "These are the exact same tactics that were used against President Donald Trump himself by the illicit and unconstitutional investigation of Jack Smith," Stone said on his radio show on Sunday. Stone said he had given Trump Hernandez's letter. On the show, Hernandez's wife, Ana García de Hernández, said Stone's advocacy for her husband had made a "huge difference" in the president's decision. Stone did not respond to requests for comment.

Hernandez's 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.

Honduras became a global hub for cocaine exports after a 2009 coup created political instability and allowed drug cartels to gain influence. The poverty-stricken country of around 11 million became one of the most violent places on earth as rival groups fought to control trafficking routes.

During Hernandez's presidency, hundreds of thousands of Hondurans fled extortion and gang violence by migrating to the United States.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Diego Ore; additional reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez, Nathan Layne, Katharine Jackson and Andrew Hay; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Ross Colvin and Nick Zieminski)