“I Am An Innocent Man” - The DC SETUP That Turned A Cartel Fighting President Into A Narco Terrorist
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
139.7278
Summary
In this episode, former Honduran President, Manuel Zel Zel Zelaya, talks about his time in prison, his pardon, and his life after being released from prison. He also talks about the events that led to his release.
Transcript
00:00:00.040
Who are you? Can you share with the people your story, why you're here, why you're even willing to go talk to camera after being pardoned?
00:00:08.940
Well, again, thank you, Patrick, for having me.
00:00:13.580
The reason because I'm here is because I want the world to know the truth.
00:00:18.620
When I was sentenced, I told the judge and looked to the press and said,
00:00:31.320
Now that you are giving me the opportunity, we are going to talk about things that I haven't said before.
00:00:37.560
And I encourage you that you can go deep into this and you are going to see things that are really scary.
00:00:48.200
I couldn't believe that after being called the champion against narco-traffic in Central America,
00:00:55.520
then the deep state and some agents, some public officials in the United States, they were indicting me when they were giving me recognition, prices.
00:01:09.680
Honduras became the main bridge between South and North America for drugs to come through Honduras and then to Mexico, as you said before.
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But the thing is this, with that came a heavy price to the Honduran people.
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80% of all the violence was related with drug trafficking.
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So when you wake up and somebody tells you, I was a Speaker of Congress and somebody said to me,
00:01:41.560
Mr. Speaker, this morning we had the report 76 people were killed last night.
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When you have that kind of problem, you cannot, in myself, I cannot look the other way.
00:02:01.900
If you look the other way, it's because you already made a decision not to do that.
00:02:10.540
And when I was trying to do something, some other people in Congress, they were telling me,
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Remember, a couple of months ago, two years ago, they called the two anti-drug sards that we have in Honduras.
00:02:28.960
But remember what happened in Colombia when they passed the extradition law.
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A lot of terrorist attacks, a lot of killings, judges, policemen, so many other people.
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So we amended our constitution to allow the extradition for almost a century.
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It wasn't allowed extradition of Honduran nationals to any other country.
00:03:02.900
To do that, I know that I was putting my life in risk.
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But most scary for me was putting my family's life in risk.
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But at one point, you have to make the decision.
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What are the countries that we are going to inherit our children if it is a mess?
00:03:23.040
Then we became the country with the highest murder rate in the planet.
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So I started to create those instruments in order to go after the narcotraffickers.
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I did also lead and approve in Congress the anti-laundry money law, the seizing law.
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We create a very controversial law that some people from the United States didn't like it,
00:04:03.320
the Democrats, but from the very far left, they call it the shooting down law.
00:04:10.900
So illegal planes were coming from Venezuela with cargo, and all of them were landing in Honduras.
00:04:21.280
And what happened, and this, what I'm going to say, I haven't said it before.
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Before I became president, there were three deadly incidents in Honduras.
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But you know what happened with the chief of the Air Force?
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Because of the pressure of the U.S. government, the Democratic administration, the president of Honduras at that time,
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And when I realized that, I said, how can you do that if this guy, what he's doing is doing his duty?
00:05:02.820
In any country, if there's an illegal plane carrying drugs that are deadly, and it is in the Honduran airspace,
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So I said, we are going to create a law with all the protocols based in the international treaties,
00:05:28.420
But before I started as a president, I received the visit of the U.S. ambassador.
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Okay, so just to bring context, so the one prior to him, Roberto Micheletti, if I'm saying
00:06:11.280
He fires the chief of air force who shot down three planes that were flying drugs into Honduras
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How did he explain that to the people when he fired the chief of air force?
00:06:29.960
When I asked them, they told me, we have a pressure from the United States saying that
00:06:40.020
And they said that sometime ago in Peru, there was an accident.
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And there were some passengers from missionary people, nuns.
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And I said, now we have to create a law to be sure of that.
00:07:00.340
Or air force, although it is small, but it is the most professional in the region.
00:07:05.720
But when we create that, I'm going to say something else, too, that I haven't said it before.
00:07:09.960
And if you dig into the classified cables from the State Department and also from the Defense Department,
00:07:19.180
I met with the former South commander before I became president.
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But then he made that public because he went to have a meeting in the Senate.
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And we talked about it with him, with General Kelly.
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And I told him, listen, General Kelly, you know what's going on in Honduras.
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We need the backup of the United States because we are not as big as Colombia to support the terrorist attack that we are expecting.
00:08:04.520
I need to use the military force because, as in the United States, the military in Honduras is very well regarded by the people.
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So we have to create so many other instruments, but we want to work side by side with you.
00:08:21.580
I have to reform the tax collection system and so many other things.
00:08:25.600
And he said, but if you use that law, the shooting down law, we are going to be with our hands tied because the State Department doesn't like that.
00:08:36.680
And I said, listen, the new law is based on the International Treaty of Chicago.
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And there is a lot of protocols that and we are professionals regarding our efforts.
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And so later on, I found out when I saw the cables during my trial, the declassified cables, that he told the State Department, the President Hernandez told me that he was going to do this because it was a very important deterrent.
00:09:07.540
After a year, he said it in Congress, before that law, let's say every year was about 300 flights, illegal flights.
00:09:23.360
And so that's the reason because in the International Narcotics Strategic Report that the United States issues every year,
00:09:33.520
we are improving the whole time that I was in office.
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And my government was certified also as a trusted partner in the fight against narcotraffickers.
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And there is in Key West, they have a task force of 19 agencies monitoring that.
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I was invited there with my whole security council team
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and was invited to the White House, to the CIA, to the FBI, to the DEA at the very high level.
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And we were discussing how this fight was going on.
00:10:19.040
Juan Orlando is doing unprecedented things and the results are historic.
00:10:24.760
But also, they said, Juan Orlando, he's a man of his word.
00:10:31.120
He managed to approve the extradition when he was a speaker of Congress.
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And then when he became president, he was the first to use that.
00:10:40.760
We extradited during my term about 30 kingpins from Honduras.
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But later on, they used that extradition treaty to extradite me.
00:11:00.960
Now, we know General Kelly and Trump, you know, how General Kelly feels about Trump.
00:11:05.340
A couple of years ago, he called him a true fascist and made some comments.
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When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast.
00:11:27.600
We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail.
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Introducing the Future Looks Bright collection.
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00:11:55.360
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