[ad_1]
Even after Genaro García Luna, who as soon as served because the architect of Mexico’s struggle on medicine, was discovered responsible final winter of taking thousands and thousands of {dollars} from the drug lords he was meant to be pursuing, one query that lingered from his trial was simply how carefully he had interacted with United States officers on the time he was supposedly taking bribes.
On Friday, his legal professionals supplied a solution.
They filed courtroom papers saying that Mr. García Luna met with high American diplomats, legislation enforcement officers and intelligence officers greater than 180 occasions from 2007 to 2012 — a interval when a New York jury decided that he had been committing federal crimes.
Whereas serving within the highest circles of Mexico’s nationwide safety institution, the courtroom papers say, Mr. García Luna met 24 occasions with American ambassadors, eight occasions with the lawyer basic, 15 occasions with C.I.A. officers and nearly 50 occasions with the Drug Enforcement Administration, largely with the company’s regional director.
The papers additionally say that each the D.E.A. and the C.I.A. performed thorough background checks on Mr. García Luna and members of his employees and located no proof of corruption.
“Mr. García Luna and his group have been extensively vetted and cleared of any wrongdoing by the US authorities,” the lawyer, César de Castro, wrote.
As Mr. de Castro added, “Certainly the US wouldn’t have shared delicate intelligence and nationwide safety data for years with somebody they didn’t belief.”
The papers, filed in Federal District Court docket in Brooklyn, have been a part of a request by Mr. de Castro to acquire a brand new trial for his shopper primarily based on what he mentioned was newly found proof. After Mr. García Luna was discovered responsible in February, a number of witnesses got here ahead to help in his protection, together with some from Mexico who had been silent in the course of the trial “for worry of reprisal,” Mr. de Castro wrote.
Among the many items of latest proof obtained by the protection, he mentioned, have been every day schedules saved by Mr. García Luna’s aides whereas he was serving as Mexico’s public safety secretary, a robust cabinet-level submit.
Mr. de Castro mentioned he additionally received his palms on official information signed by a high D.E.A. official and the Mexican lawyer basic documenting that “the US authorities carried out intensive background investigations” of Mr. García Luna and his employees that included lie detector assessments.
Furthermore, Mr. de Castro mentioned, the protection discovered information displaying that 25 officers who labored for Mr. García Luna have been vetted by the C.I.A. and have been educated in Washington, amongst different locations, to watch and analyze the actions of drug cartels, and share their findings with American authorities.
“Having members of his division vetted by and dealing for the C.I.A. explains why the US authorities trusted Mr. García Luna with delicate data and tasks, regardless of the rumors of corruption within the Mexican authorities,” the filings mentioned.
Mr. de Castro contends that prosecutors improperly withheld a few of these information from him though he particularly requested them from the federal government 9 months earlier than the trial occurred. “These supplies would have been important to the protection and will have led to a unique end result,” he wrote.
Mr. García Luna maintained his innocence in the course of the trial.
Acquiring a brand new trial is a troublesome proposition, largely as a result of judges are typically cautious of overturning a jury’s verdict. Mr. de Castro is prone to face an uphill battle in persuading Decide Brian M. Cogan, who oversaw Mr. García Luna’s trial, to grant a brand new one, though the courtroom papers he filed claimed that some authorities witnesses had lied in courtroom the primary time.
The conviction of Mr. García Luna, the highest-ranking Mexican official to be tried on drug costs in the US, was a sign second within the historical past of the cross-border struggle on drug cartels. In Mexico, it was extensively seen as a cathartic spectacle by which a high authorities official was lastly held accountable for his a few years of corruption.
Mexicans have lengthy suspected that these on the highest ranges of energy have been in league with the very gangsters who for many years have inflicted ache and struggling on their nation. The bitterness and disappointment have been heightened by the truth that regardless of billions of {dollars} and a long time of efforts by legislation enforcement on each side of the border, the violence in Mexico has reached new heights in recent times.
The García Luna trial appeared at first prefer it may shed some mild on the thriller of how a person who “was showered with reward from each nook of United States legislation enforcement and political communities,” as Mr. de Castro wrote, may on the identical time have been getting big payoffs from the gangsters of the Sinaloa drug cartel, considered one of Mexico’s strongest drug mafias.
However though the witnesses in Brooklyn included former cartel operatives, onetime Mexican police officers and even a person who had as soon as served as the US ambassador to Mexico, the query of what American officers knew about Mr. García Luna’s ties to the cartels was largely left unresolved.
Prosecutors will now get to reply to Mr. de Castro’s allegations. After that, Decide Cogan will resolve on whether or not or to not grant a brand new trial in a course of that would take a number of weeks.
[ad_2]
Source link