“The conditions in which he has been detained for the past five years at the MCC prison should be considered by the court in reducing his sentence,” the trial team said.
The defense said Garcia Luna is “a good person, a man devoted to his family and who spent most of his career defending the ideals of the United States.”
Last week, the United States Attorney’s Office requested life imprisonment for the former Secretary of Public Security under Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
The former official’s defense said that giving him a life sentence would be “an unjustified disparity in sentences.”
In his request for life imprisonment, prosecutor Breon Peace argued in a document addressed to Judge Brian Cogan that the seriousness of the crimes committed by the former Mexican official warrants that he spend the rest of his days behind bars, in addition to paying a fine of five million dollars.
“In exchange for millions of dollars, the defendant facilitated a conspiracy responsible for the deaths of thousands of Mexican and U.S. citizens,” the authority said.
“It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant’s crimes, the deaths and addictions they facilitated, and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States,” he added.
Judge Brian Cogan will sentence García Luna on October 9.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that García Luna did not come from a poor family, like many drug traffickers, but rather grew up in a stable environment, with an education that led him to join Felipe Calderón’s Cabinet.
“The defendant has shown no remorse for his criminal conduct, but has instead continued to commit crimes while in custody, attempting to obstruct justice by offering bribes to other offenders in the prison where he is being held,” he said.
Garcia Luna’s letter
Days after receiving his sentence in the United States, Genaro García Luna, Secretary of Public Security during the Felipe Calderón Hinojosa administration, claimed to be innocent of the drug trafficking charges against him and accused President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of having alleged ties to leaders of organized crime.
The former Mexican official, who was found guilty by a US jury of drug trafficking and ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, said that days after his arrest in December 2019, authorities offered him a deal to indict Mexican individuals and institutions, “which would weaken the development, public peace and institutional life of the country.”
In a letter released by his defense, García Luna said that after he refused to accept the deal, his trial proceeded, in which prosecutors “did not present a single piece of evidence or proof that proved the crimes; they did not present any document, photograph, video, audio, communication record, tax documents, bank accounts or any record of contact with any member of the drug trade.”
The man in charge of Calderón’s security strategy said that “there are official records in Mexico and the United States of contacts between President López Obrador and his operators with drug trafficking leaders and their families.”
The alleged official link with drug traffickers, García Luna said, is with those directly involved in the trial in which he was found guilty.
“These facts are corroborated by the recent capture of drug trafficker Ismael Zambada, the letter he issued in which he points out the links between the current government and him and drug trafficking, the position of the Mexican government against the capture of the kingpin and the dismantling of the judiciary,” he said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador denied what was stated by Felipe Calderón’s former official.
García Luna said that during his time in prison, he has witnessed homicides, stabbings and threats against his safety. “On two occasions, I was assigned companions who recorded me for more than two thousand hours, trying to involve me in drug trafficking or some crime,” he said.
(Special image)
García Luna said he will continue trying to prove that there is no evidence against him. He also spoke out against the Mexican Judicial Reform.
(Misael Valtierra/Cuartoscuro)
In August, the investigating judge in the case of former U.S. Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, who was found guilty of drug trafficking in the United States, denied his request for a new trial.
The request by the former Mexican official, the highest-ranking to ever sit in the U.S. courtroom, was based on the discovery of new, allegedly exculpatory evidence collected by the defense.
However, Judge Brian Cogan said that “none of the arguments are sufficient for a new trial” and so he “denies” the request presented by García Luna’s representatives.
“Much of the ‘new evidence’ consists of facts known or accessible to the defendant before the trial,” the document stated, in which the judge dismantles each of the defense’s allegations. Others “lack substance,” he justified.
After being postponed several times, the verdict is scheduled for 9 October.
García Luna, 56, was found guilty by a jury in a New York court in February 2023 on five charges, including international cocaine trafficking.
García Luna could spend the rest of his life in prison.
According to the New York prosecutor’s office, García Luna protected the Sinaloa Cartel led by Joaquín ‘Chapo’ Guzmán, sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States, in exchange for million-dollar bribes to be able to send drugs to the neighboring country.
A resident of the United States since leaving the Mexican government in 2012, García Luna was arrested in Dallas, Texas, in December 2019.
Another founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 76, was arrested in the United States on July 25 when he landed in a private plane at an airfield in the town of El Paso, Texas.
On board the plane was Joaquín Guzmán López, son of “El Chapo,” who was also arrested in the operation.
The Mexican government has also requested the United States to extradite García Luna for embezzlement of public funds.
-With information from the AFP agency.
