Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez once painted himself as a champion of the fight against drug trafficking only to become one of the most high-profile figures implicated in it.

Last year, he was sentenced to decades in prison, convicted of helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States starting in 2004, long before he became president.

On Tuesday, he walked free.

Despite US prosecutors saying he had turned Honduras into a "narco-state," the 57-year-old lawyer received a surprise pardon from US President Donald Trump.

Hernandez "has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly," said Trump, whose administration has killed dozens of alleged but unproven drug smugglers in boat strikes in Latin America.

Hernande

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