Release of convicted cocaine trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández is latest US interference in election and comes despite Trump’s apparent ‘war on drugs’

• Analysis: Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’

A former president of Honduras who was convicted of drug trafficking has walked free from a US prison after receiving a pardon from Donald Trump, as the country’s presidential election remained on a knife edge with the US-backed candidate leading by 515 votes.

Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”, was released from a West Virginia prison after Trump’s intervention, Hernández’s wife confirmed on Tuesday.