He could receive life imprisonment, anticipates a lawyer specializing in public safety

From the editorial

Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, February 22, 2023, p. 6

Genaro García Luna is the first high-level Mexican Secretary of State in the six-year term of Felipe Calderón who is tried in a United States federal court, who could be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, said lawyer Samuel González Ruiz, a specialist in the matter public security and organized crime. “The judge could impose a sentence similar to that of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, to life imprisonment.

In an interview, he pointed out that the bosses close to the former federal security secretary have political responsibility, since former agents denounced him, among them Javier Herrera Valles, for acts of corruption, illicit enrichment and having alleged links with organized crime.

Many people in the country said that there was not enough evidence, that photographs, documents, videos, recordings, money were missing; that is not knowing the American legal system, which is based on witnesses, even the experts testify as experts when they enter the evidence, so what it presupposes are statements by people who, unlike Mexico, the United States witness does not lie, because the penalty for perjury is very high. Lying to the judicial authority is a very serious sanction.

He reiterated that in the United States this system works with witnesses and does not allow perjury, and in case of lying they are prosecuted; For his part, the prosecutor must convince the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, and prove every element of the crime.

“The jury should not know anything, they have to prove everything. After four weeks of trial, the members of the jury had the verdict, García Luna was found guilty of five counts. The prosecution was very confident, it is a prosecution that has more than 90 percent success in cases like this and therefore had a great advantage.

What one does not understand (is) why García Luna did not avoid this trial and negotiate a 20-year sentence that would have benefited him, that is how the United States system works, negotiating, pleading guilty.

He added that García Luna’s defense may appeal the ruling, since Judge Brian Cogan is expected to announce the conviction in June, as well as the years in prison, although he considered it unlikely that the challenge would proceed.

As a Mexican, it is a moment that we have to consider quite terrible for the country. It is the verification of a fact that many assumed, but that has now been judicially verified, qualified by a functioning justice system, where it was proven that a secretary of the highest level participated in these acts of support for the cartels that have generated so many deaths. and that it is proven beyond a reasonable doubt to an American jury, that these acts occurred added.