"treated very harshly and unfairly" in a social media post announcing the move on Friday. Hernández was found guilty in March 2024 of conspiring to import cocaine into the US, and of possessing machine guns. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Trump also threw his support behind conservative presidential candidate Nasry "Tito" Asfura in the Central American nation's general election, due to be held on Sunday.

Hernández, a member of the National Party, who served as Honduras's president from 2014 to 2022, was extradited to the US in April 2022 to stand trial for running a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US. He was convicted by a New York jury two years later. Polls indicate the Honduran election remains a toss-up between three candidates including Asfura, the former mayor of Tegucigalpa and leader of the conservative National Party. Also in the running is Rixi Moncada, a former defence minister standing for the ruling left-wing Libre Party, and Salvador Nasralla, a television host with the centrist Liberal Party. Trump criticised Moncada and Nasralla on Friday, writing that the latter was "a borderline Communist" who was only running to split the vote between Moncada and Asfura. (BBC)