Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jan. 26, 2010, SPA -- The Honduran Supreme Court exonerated today the country's military leadership of charges related to the expulsion of ousted president Manuel Zelaya, according to dpa. The Supreme Court that ordered the Armed Forces to arrest Zelaya on June 28, given his insistence on holding a referendum on a constituent assembly that could have allowed him to stand for reelection. Zelaya was forced into exile in Costa Rica, although he secretly returned to Honduras in late September and has been sheltered since then in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. On Wednesday, following the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo as Honduras' new president, Zelaya is scheduled to leave the country for the Dominican Republic. Honduran Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera, acting on behalf of the tribunal as a whole, exonerated Armed Forces Commander Romeo Vasquez and the commanders of the Honduran Army, Navy and Air Force of charges related to the June coup. Rivera argued that military leaders acted in the face of a "situation of real danger in Honduras" and of a threat of an "institutional collapse of the state," amid tensions in the weeks leading up to the ouster. "They did not deliberately intend to cause damage," the judge said. The charges did not refer to Zelaya's arrest, but rather to the fact that the military did not turn the president over to the courts and instead expelled him. The court decision came on the eve of Lobo's inauguration as Honduras' new president, on the day when Zelaya's mandate was set to end. Lobo won a November 29 presidential election that had been scheduled before the coup, but which Zelaya and many foreign institutions considered illegitimate since it had taken place out under a de facto regime. --SPA 23:45 LOCAL TIME 20:45 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/742138