April 8 (Reuters) – A U.S. court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and ordered a prior judgment to be vacated, a court document showed, following his pardon by U.S. President Donald Trump in December.
Hernandez had previously been serving a 45-year sentence for conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the United States.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said Hernandez had asked for an appeal against the charges to be eliminated, citing the presidential pardon.
“The motion is granted, and the appeal is dismissed as moot,” the court said. “It is further ordered that the district court judgment is vacated.”
The court document did not comment further on the nature of the charges or conviction.
Hernandez, speaking in a video that was played at a press conference in Honduras, celebrated that the appeal was closed.
“I’m innocent – I said so on the day of my sentencing,” he said.
(Reporting by Iñigo Alexander in Mexico City, Laura Garcia in Tegucigalpa and Nate Raymond in New York, Editing by Himani Sarkar, Daina Beth Solomon and Christopher Cushing)
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