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MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has accused the United States Drug Enforcement Administration of fabricating drug trafficking charges against the country’s former defense secretary even as his government released hundreds of pages of American files that purported to show detailed evidence of the man. close ties to a drug gang.
The decision to denounce U.S. prosecutors on Friday while clearing a senior prosecutor adds to a crisis in security cooperation for the new administration of President-elect Joe Biden.
This follows the Mexican government’s decision to restrict US agents and withdraw their immunity, apparently a slap in the face after US efforts to appease Mexico by releasing retired General Salvador Cienfuegos to stand trial in Mexico.
The US Department of Justice said it was “deeply disappointed” by the closure of the case against Cienfuegos. He also said the publication of the evidence violated a legal aid treaty and called into question the ability of the United States to continue to share information.
He also said the published documents demonstrated the strength of the evidence against Cienfuegos.
López Obrador has relied heavily on the military for a wide range of projects far beyond security. In this case, he said that while many Mexicans regard the US courts as “the good, impeccable judges … in this case, with all due respect, those who conducted this investigation did not act professionally.”
His administration then released a 751-page dossier that US authorities had shared in support of what they understood to be the Mexican prosecution of Cienfuegos. Intercepted Blackberry messenger exchanges between traffickers who have since been killed were marked: “Shared by court order, not for further distribution.”
It was not immediately clear whether the disclosure of the documents would affect other court cases in the United States.
The US government dropped its charges against Cienfuegos in November in a diplomatic concession in Mexico and sent him home, where he was immediately released.
López Obrador said on Friday that Mexican prosecutors had dropped the case because the evidence shared by the United States had no value to prove he had committed a crime.
“Why did they conduct the investigation like that?” López Obrador said. “Without support, without proof?”
The leaked documents include text messages allegedly intercepted between the leader of the H-2 cartel based in Nayarit state on the Pacific coast and a senior official, who is said to have served as an intermediary with the general, often referred to as “the godfather.” And at one point like “Salvador Sinfuego Sepeda”.
In an exchange, Daniel Silva Garate told his boss, Juan Francisco Patrón Sánchez, that he was arrested by men with military-style short haircuts and taken to the headquarters of the Defense Department in Mexico City for a meeting with “The Godfather. “
Silva-Garate tells his boss that “The Godfather” told him, “Now we’re going to do great things with you … that what you have done is small.”
Patrón Sanchez says he wants safe routes to ship drugs from Colombia and Silva Garate texts: “He says as long as he’s here you’ll be free… they’ll never conduct operations. strong ”or raids.
Silva Garate tells her boss that the “Godfather” told her: “You can sleep peacefully, no operation will affect you.”
Other exchanges describe the Godfather allegedly offering to organize a boat to help transport drugs, introducing the traffickers to other officials, and admitting to helping other traffickers in the past.
Speaking at his daily press conference on Friday, López Obrador, who has made fighting corruption a theme of his administration, insisted his government would not cover anyone.
“We are not going to fabricate crimes. We’re not going to invent anything, ”he says. “We must act on the basis of facts, evidence, realities.”
The US Department of Justice issued a statement saying it could still resume prosecution against Cienfuegos if Mexico did not. And in a statement Thursday night, Mexico’s attorney general’s office went beyond saying it was closing the case by fully laundering the general.
“General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda has never had a meeting with the criminal organization that the American authorities have investigated, and that he has never had any communication with them, nor has he acted to protect or help these people, “the office said in a statement.
He said Cienfuegos had not been found to have illegal or abnormal income, and no evidence was found “that he issued an order to favor the criminal group in question.”
Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, said the only surprise was that Mexico didn’t put on a better show reviewing Cienfuegos.
“You would think they would at least have carried out some semblance of an investigation, even if it were only to put a little facade on the illusion that the rule of law exists,” McCormick said. “On the Mexican side, this signals the deep control of the military as an institution over power.”
López Obrador has given the military more responsibility than any president in recent history, relying on it to build massive infrastructure projects and more recently to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine, in addition to the responsibilities of extended security.
Cienfuegos was arrested after being secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in 2019. He was charged with conspiring with the H-2 cartel to smuggle thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana while he was Secretary of Defense from 2012 to 2018.
Even though the United States sent Cienfuegos home, the Mexican Congress passed a law a few weeks later that will restrict American agents in Mexico and lift their diplomatic immunity.
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the Cienfuegos cleanup “could be the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to US-Mexico cooperation in response activities. against drugs ”.
“It was predetermined that Mexican justice would not go ahead with the prosecution of General Cienfuegos,” Vigil said. “This will seriously stain the integrity of its judicial system and despite the political rhetoric of wanting to eliminate corruption, this is obviously not the case. The rule of law has been seriously violated. “
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AP writer E. Eduardo Castillo from Mexico contributed to this report.
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