President Claudia Sheinbaum yesterday supported the sentence of more than 38 years in prison against the former Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Lunafor receiving millionaire bribes from drug trafficking and took the opportunity to question whoever was his boss, the former president Felipe Calderón.
Sheinbaum affirmed that “the day before’s ruling against García Luna is not minor” and assured that the case “speaks of the decadence, of the degradation” of Calderón’s six-year term, who governed Mexico between 2006-2012 with the support of the Action Party. National (PAN).
García Luna was found guilty by a jury in New York in mid-2023 of receiving millions of dollars in bribes to protect the Sinaloa Cartel he was supposedly fighting and of providing information on rival cartels that allowed the free movement of enormous quantities of drugs. The sentence was handed down more than a year later.
During her morning conference, the President harshly criticized the statement that Calderón issued after the sentence was announced and stated that it was “terrible cynicism” for him to express that he never had “verifiable evidence” about the illicit activities of his Secretary of Public Security.
“Now it turns out that for six years he didn’t realize it,” Sheinbaum commented in an ironic tone and accused the former president of putting “a drug trafficker at the head of this security policy.”
“The people of Mexico cannot forget what happened during that six-year term,” said the President when questioning the security policy that Calderón followed of frontal combat against criminal organizations — which left hundreds dead, missing, and complaints of violations of human rights—and ruled out that his Government was going to resume the “war on drugs.”
García Luna, 56, led the federal police before heading a cabinet-level secretariat, serving as the highest-ranking security official in Mexico between 2006 and 2012. At that time, the United States praised him, calling him its ally in the fight against drug trafficking.
Federal Judge Brian Cogan noted that he was not moved by the recognition García Luna had received for his work. “That was his cover,” the judge told the former official before imposing the sentence. “You are guilty of these crimes, sir. “You can’t boast these words and say, ‘I’m the cop of the year.'”
In a press conference, the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar said yesterday that after the García case “we and President Sheinbaum are aligned on what has to be done: ensure that officials are not corrupt.”carry out an “authentic exchange” of information and “have clarity” when collaborating on security issues, one of the priorities for both countries.
AP
Pending matters
- Among the pending bilateral security issues is the extradition of two leaders of Los Zetas, one of the most violent groups in the country. Miguel Treviño Morales and his brother Omar Treviño Morales, nicknamed Z-40 and Z-42, have been imprisoned in Mexico for a decade and have been accused by US prosecutors of controlling the bloodthirsty Northeast Cartel from prison.
- The diplomat did not go into the depth of the matter about the problems in Mexican prisons that allowed this criminal activity nor did he respond to the question of whether the Government of Mexico took any action to avoid this situation. He only indicated that the authorities had known for a long time everything that was in the accusation against the Treviño Morales brothers.
- Claudia Sheinbaum also made no mention of that aspect, which represents a questioning of the federal authorities.
- “Who has them protected so that they cannot be extradited? The Judiciary,” stated Sheinbaum, giving this case as an example of how necessary the reform of the judiciary that came into force a month ago was despite the numerous criticisms it aroused due to fear that it would politicize justice.
- The US ambassador also criticized the judges’ action in the Z-40 and Z-42 case and gave it as an example of how necessary it was to correct these types of problems but not in the way it has been done.
- The United States has been very critical of the constitutional changes so that judges are elected by popular vote and Salazar himself said in August that this reform could put Mexican democracy at risk.
CT