MEXICO CITY >> Federal prosecutors said last year that when Juan Orlando Hernandez was president of Honduras, he received millions of dollars from drug traffickers including Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo, the Mexican drug lord.

In return, prosecutors alleged, Hernandez allowed vast amounts of cocaine to pass through Honduras on its way to the United States. They said he once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”

He was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

On Friday, President Donald Trump said he was setting him free.

He announced that he would grant “a Full and Complete Pardon” to Hernandez, news that came as a shock not only to Hondurans but also to authorities in the United States who had built a major case and won the convict

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