MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused the United States Anti-Drug Agency of fabricating drug trafficking charges against the country’s former Defense Secretary, although his government published hundreds of pages of US files. USA who intended to show detailed evidence of the crime. close links with a drug gang.
The decision to denounce US prosecutors on Friday while clearing a senior official of the charges heightens a crisis in security cooperation for President-elect Joe Biden’s next government.
This follows the Mexican government’s decision to restrict US agents and remove 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” with the closure of the case against Cienfuegos. He also said that the publication of the evidence violates a legal aid treaty and questions whether the United States can continue to share information.
He also stated that the published material demonstrates the strength of the evidence against Cienfuegos.
López Obrador relied heavily on the military for a wide range of projects, far beyond security. In this case, he said that although many Mexicans see the US courts as “the good, perfect judges … in this case, with all due respect, those who did this investigation did not act professionally”.
His government then published a 751-page file that the United States authorities shared to support what they intended to be the Mexican Cienfuegos process. Exchanges of Blackberry messages intercepted between traffickers already dead were marked: “Shared by court order, not for later distribution.”
It was not immediately clear whether disclosure of the documents would affect other US lawsuits.
The United States government dropped the charges against Cienfuegos in November in a diplomatic concession to Mexico and sent him home, where he was immediately released.
López Obrador said on Friday that Mexican prosecutors dropped the case because the evidence shared by the United States was of no value to prove that he committed a crime.
“Why did they do the investigation like that?” Said López Obrador. “Without support, without evidence?”
The documents released include alleged text messages intercepted between the leader of the H-2 cartel based in the state of Nayarit, on the Pacific coast, and a senior adviser, who allegedly served as an intermediary with the general, often referred to as “The Godfather” And at a certain point like “Salvador Sinfuego Sepeda”.
In an exchange, Daniel Silva Garate told his boss, Juan Francisco Patrón Sánchez, that he had been picked up by men with short military-style haircuts and was taken to the Department of Defense headquarters in Mexico City for a meeting with “O Godfather. “
Silva-Garate tells his boss that “The Godfather” said to him “Now we are going to do great things with you … that what you did is insignificant”.
Patrón Sanchez says he wants unmolested routes to transport drugs from Colombia and Silva Garate sends messages back: “He says that while you’re here, you’ll be free … that they will never carry out strong operations” or raids.
Silva Garate tells his boss that “The Godfather” said to him: “You can sleep in peace, no operation will touch you”.
Other exchanges describe The Godfather allegedly offering to arrange a boat to help transport drugs, introducing traffickers to other authorities and acknowledging having helped other traffickers in the past.
In his daily press conference on Friday, López Obrador, who made the fight against corruption a topic for his government, insisted that his government would not cover up anyone.
“We are not going to manufacture crimes. We are not going to invent anything, ”he said. “We have to act based on the facts, the evidence, the realities.”
The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement saying it could still resume prosecution against Cienfuegos if Mexico does not. And in a statement on Thursday night, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office went beyond just announcing that it was closing the case by fully clarifying the general.
“General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda never met with the criminal organization investigated by the American authorities, and he also never communicated with it, nor did he perform acts to protect or help these people,” the agency said in a statement.
According to the report, Cienfuegos was not considered to have any illicit or abnormal income, nor was any evidence found “that he had issued any 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 did not give a better demonstration of researching Cienfuegos.
“One would think that they would at least have gone ahead in some semblance of an investigation, even if it was just to embellish the illusion that the rule of law exists,” said McCormick. “On the Mexican side, this signals the profound control that the military as an institution has over power.”
López Obrador has given the military more responsibility than any president in recent history, counting on it to build large infrastructure projects and, more recently, to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine, in addition to expanded security responsibilities.
Cienfuegos was arrested after being secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in 2019. He was accused of conspiring with the H-2 cartel to smuggle thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana while he was secretary of defense in 2012 to 2018.
Although the United States sent Cienfuegos home, the Mexican Congress a few weeks later passed a law that will restrict American agents in Mexico and remove their diplomatic immunity.
Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that releasing Cienfuegos “could be the last straw that broke the head when it comes to US-Mexico cooperation in anti-drug activities.”
“It was predetermined that Mexican justice would not go ahead with the trial of General Cienfuegos,” said Vigil. “This will greatly stain the integrity of your judicial system and, despite the political rhetoric of wanting to eliminate corruption, this is obviously not the case. The rule of law has been significantly violated. “
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The editor of the AP, E. Eduardo Castillo, from Mexico City, contributed to this report.