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MEXICO CITY — The authorities in Mexico say they are going to convey no expenses in opposition to a former high army official who was arrested within the United States final yr on drug-trafficking and corruption expenses, solely to be despatched residence on the request of the outraged Mexican authorities.
The former protection minister, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, had been accused by the U.S. authorities of taking bribes in alternate for safeguarding drug cartel leaders. He was arrested on the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles in October.
His full exoneration in Mexico got here as a stunning about-face after the authorities had promised to convey the complete weight of the Mexican justice system to bear within the case. In November, the nation’s overseas minister mentioned that doing nothing after having demanded the overall’s return to Mexico can be “almost suicidal.”
General Cienfuegos was apparently generally known as “El Padrino,” or The Godfather, by one in every of Mexico’s most violent drug cartels. Officials mentioned General Cienfuegos directed army operations away from the felony group in alternate for big sums of money. But the Justice Department abruptly dropped the case in opposition to him in November, and he was allowed to return to Mexico.
Late Thursday night time, the Mexican lawyer basic’s workplace mentioned in an announcement that General Cienfuegos — who served as protection minister in President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration from 2012 to 2018 — “never had any encounter with the members of the criminal organization.”
They additionally mentioned he had not offered any type of safety to cartel members and had by no means obtained any “illegal income.”
General Cienfuegos, who was by no means positioned beneath arrest in Mexico regardless of the proof introduced by U.S. officers, has now been cleared of all expenses.
The information is a brand new blow to U.S. officers, significantly these within the State Department and in Congress, who have been shocked by the Justice Department’s determination to free General Cienfuegos and permit him to face justice in Mexico.
Relations between the United States and Mexico over safety operations have change into more and more fraught because the basic’s arrest. In December, Mexican lawmakers permitted laws to control the actions of overseas brokers within the nation, probably limiting cooperation with American narcotics officers.
The new legislation was greeted with immense frustration by U.S. officers, together with William P. Barr, then the lawyer basic, who mentioned in an announcement that the invoice would make “cooperation between our countries more difficult.”
Mike Vigil, a former chief of worldwide operations on the Drug Enforcement Administration, advised The Associated Press that clearing General Cienfuegos “could be the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as U.S.-Mexico cooperation in counter-drug activities.”
Yet General Cienfuegos’s exoneration has additionally prompted outrage in Mexico, significantly provided that the Mexican authorities had vowed to completely examine the accusations in opposition to him.
“The exoneration of Salvador Cienfuegos shows that the armed forces are untouchable,” Denise Dresser, a political analyst and frequent authorities critic, said on Twitter. “They act above the law.”
The Mexican army is an more and more central pillar of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s technique to deal with Mexico’s hovering charges of violence. It serves many different roles, too, together with working airports and distributing the coronavirus vaccine.
Under Mr. López Obrador’s authorities, which took workplace in December 2018, army spending has grown by virtually 40 p.c, in line with native media. The protection ministry’s price range has outpaced the overall obtained by eight different federal companies mixed, together with the overseas ministry, the inside ministry and the financial system ministry.
General Cienfuegos’s arrest had left Mexico’s army significantly incensed, with military officers urgent the federal government to take motion.
Still, at a information convention in November, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard mentioned that “it would be very costly” for Mexico to “do nothing” after having requested for the fees in opposition to the previous protection chief to be dropped and for him to be returned residence.
“It would be almost suicidal,” Mr. Ebrard mentioned.
But the truth that General Cienfuegos will face no expenses just isn’t altogether stunning in a rustic the place impunity for the well-connected is exceptionally excessive, even for minor crimes, and the place greater than 90 p.c of homicides go unsolved.
In its assertion, the lawyer basic’s workplace mentioned that General Cienfuegos was made conscious on Jan. 9 of the fees in opposition to him by the U.S. authorities, in addition to of the outcomes of the Mexican authorities’ personal investigation. The basic was then allowed to supply proof in his protection.
Less than every week later, all expenses have been dropped.
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