The former two-term president of Honduras denied in court on Tuesday that he had trafficked narcotics, offered police protection to drug cartels or taken bribes — assertions that have been at the heart of a conspiracy trial taking place in Manhattan.
The former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, has been on trial for two weeks in Federal District Court, facing charges that he conspired to import cocaine into the United States. Prosecutors said that he worked with ruthless drug gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, led by the Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo.
Government witnesses have included a string of former traffickers from Honduras who testified that they bribed Mr. Hernández in return for promises that he would insulate them from investigations and protect them from extradition to the United States.
Dressed in a dark suit with a blue shirt and tie, Mr. Hernández sat up straight during his testimony and sometimes gave long, discursive answers that prompted the judge overseeing the trial to rein him in.
At other times his answers were terse.
“Did you ever receive a bribe from El Chapo?” one of Mr. Hernández’s lawyers asked at one point.
“Never,” Mr. Hernández replied.
He gave the same answer to successive questions about whether he had ever met El Chapo, his traffickers or anyone purporting to be a member of the Sinaloa cartel.
When one of his lawyers asked if he had promised cartels that he would protect them, Mr. Hernández answered: “On the contrary, sir. The problem was that we were going to terminate them.”
Throughout the trial, rows of benches in the courtroom have been filled with Hondurans attending to watch Mr. Hernández face a judicial process of the sort some doubted could have taken place in Honduras. Those who could not find a seat in the courtroom have instead watched the proceedings on a tall screen in an overflow room on a different floor of the courthouse.
During Mr. Hernández’s direct testimony on Tuesday, some in the courtroom gallery were rapt. At times others laughed derisively, and on one occasion a statement by Mr. Hernández was met with a long hiss.
It is almost always considered risky for a criminal defendant to testify because friendly questions from a defense lawyer are typically followed by a pointed cross-examination from prosecutors.
Some defendants decide to testify because they believe they can sway jurors; others may choose to take the stand when they feel that the tide of a trial is going against them and they have little to lose.
While cross-examining Mr. Hernández on Tuesday afternoon, a prosecutor asked him why various accused traffickers whose extradition had been requested by the United States had not been handed over while he was president. Mr. Hernández replied that his administration had referred all extradition requests to the Honduran Supreme Court.
Later, the prosecutor asked Mr. Hernández about a photograph taken during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa that showed him with a man named Miguel Arnulfo Valle Valle, who was a leader of a violent drug gang. Mr. Hernández replied that he believed the picture had been the subject of a debate over whether it was fake or a “photomontage.”
“The person with his arm around you is Arnulfo Valle?” the prosecutor asked.
Mr. Hernández replied: “Sir, I don’t know Mr. Arnulfo Valle.”
During his political career as a member of the right-wing Honduran National Party, Mr. Hernández was seen as adept at accumulating power and willing to use it, sometimes bluntly.
When the Supreme Court threw out laws he had pushed through while serving as president of the Honduran Congress, the Congress simply replaced four justices. Later, the Supreme Court changed rules to allow Mr. Hernández to serve a second term as president of Honduras.
Political opponents claimed that both the presidential contests that Mr. Hernández won, in 2013 and 2017, were marred by fraud. Prosecutors in New York said that he financed both with drug money. Distrust of the 2017 election results led to protests that blocked roads and bridges.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Hernández gave money to a political party colleague who paid gang members to commit violence, and that demonstrators died during confrontations with security forces that followed.
By the time his second term ended, Mr. Hernández was deeply unpopular. His administration had failed to curb crime or create a healthy economy, which led in part to migration from Honduras. His successor as president, Xiomara Castro, accused Mr. Hernández of having turned the country into a “narco-dictatorship.” Thousands of Hondurans celebrated when he was extradited to New York.
On Tuesday, Mr. Hernández portrayed himself as a stalwart partner of U.S. officials in their fight to stem the flow of drugs over the country’s southern border. He said that he had several meetings about that with U.S. officials, including Gen. John Kelly, then the commander of the U.S. Army Southern Command.
“I asked General Kelly to help us in our fight against drug trafficking,” Mr. Hernández said, adding: “The Southern Command helped us set up an elite force that we called the Tigers.”
As Mr. Hernández was being cross-examined, spectators in the overflow room were more animated than those who had watched in the courtroom. At times laughter echoed in the room, including when Mr. Hernández professed puzzlement over the World Cup photo that showed him with Mr. Valle.
After the court session ended, Mr. Hernández buttoned his suit jacket, rose from the witness stand and was led by a federal marshal back to the seat at the defense table that he had occupied since the trial began.
