By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former Honduran police chief known as “El Tigre” has pleaded guilty to a U.S. criminal charge, court records showed on Wednesday, days before the country’s former President Juan Orlando Hernandez is set to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
The former national police chief, Juan Carlos Bonilla, had been set to stand trial alongside Hernandez in federal court in Manhattan starting next Monday.
Bonilla was extradited to the United States in 2022. He pleaded guilty to one criminal count at a hearing on Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel, court records showed. He had previously pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said Bonilla directed police to let cocaine shipments pass through checkpoints without being inspected or seized in exchange for bribes while leading the Central American country’s police force between 2012 and 2013 under right-wing President Porfirio Lobo.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to charges of taking bribes from cartels while he was Honduras’ president from 2014 to 2022.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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