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(CNN) – Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was released on Friday after being detained for more than seven hours at Tegucigalpa’s Toncontín Airport after he was intercepted allegedly carrying thousands of dollars without declaring, according to authorities, Zelaya says. that do not belong to him.
The former president, Public Ministry spokesman Yuri Mora, told CNN, was released after signing the minutes of an administrative proceeding as a suspect, as he told prosecutors that the money found in his backpack was not of This is why the Asset Laundering Prosecutor’s Office has now initiated a process to determine who owns the money.
Honduran law allows travelers to carry up to USD 10,000 in cash without having to declare it to the authorities. Had it been proven that the money belonged to Zelaya, he would not have committed a crime, but for failing to report he would have had to pay a fine equal to one third of what was in the backpack.
Jari Dixon, Zelaya’s attorney, told CNN that they will wait for the prosecution’s investigation and then consider what action they would take because, he assured, Zelaya didn’t bring that money.
Leaving the airport on Friday night, Zelaya told the media that he is more interested than anyone else in clarifying the dollar issue, as, he assured, someone wants to hurt him. Zelaya indicated that at his level and age, trying to spend $ 18,000 without declaring is “absurd”.
The former president also said that when he arrived at the airport there was another person carrying the backpack and was surprised when the agents of the Airport Security Division (DSA) requested it and admitted him to a room where they asked him about his backpack and money.
The incident was first revealed by Zelaya himself when he announced in a tweet that he had been “wrongly” arrested while preparing to travel to a Labor Party seminar in Mexico. In the tweet he added: “It is caused by a lot of money with $ 18,000; that’s not mine. Now in the presence of the public prosecutor ”.
In a video that one of the DSA agents on duty gave to CNN and other media that covered Zelaya’s situation in Tocontín, he is seen walking into an airport room for an inspection, opening a backpack, pulling out a envelope with money and when they ask him for the amount of cash, he says “there must be about $ 12,000 here … that’s a mistake”.
The recording shows that when a DSA agent asks him if he has declared it, he replies: “No, I have not declared it.”
CNN has asked DSA for a full version of the video, including before, during and after the incident, but has not yet received a response.
Public Ministry: “He was not arrested”
Mora, spokesman for the Public Prosecutor, said at that moment in a telephone contact with Televicentro, an affiliate of CNN, that the former president “was not arrested, it was simply and simply an administrative procedure in which a report must be compiled and then the passenger who takes that money, goes away and goes or goes home ».
The minutes, Mora said, “were ready long ago, but his lawyers came and said the money had to be counted again. If this had not happened, hours ago the former President Zelaya would have left the airport or, failing that, he could have taken the flight that would have taken him to his destination.
In another Tweet which he posted while still in custody, Zelaya said that “they asked me to count the money one by one and add it up even though I wasn’t the owner, and they didn’t want to count it, claiming it’s my backpack and that I should. I wanted to get on board and there were only 10 minutes left ”. Zelaya pointed out that “this video is obviously cut and edited”.
CNN is attempting to speak to the airport security division to get their response to Zelaya’s claim about the alleged video editing.
The public ministry spokesman told CNN on Saturday that this body is not responding to Zelaya’s claims that the incident is an attempt to harm him as the former president does not mention the public ministry as a party involved.
Zelaya, overthrown in a coup on June 28, 2009, was able to travel to Mexico on Saturday to attend seminars of the Labor Party, a force allied with the Morena government.
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