Mexico’s former public security chief to be sentenced in US drug case
Al Jazeera
Genaro Garcia Luna was convicted of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa drug cartel.
A former Mexican public security chief is due to be sentenced in a US court after being convicted of taking millions in bribes to aid drug traffickers his office was supposed to be fighting.
The sentencing on Wednesday in a New York federal court of Genaro Garcia Luna comes after he was convicted last year on charges of conspiring to protect the drug trafficking activities of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel.
Federal prosecutors said that under Garcia Luna’s watch, drug traffickers were able to ship over one million kilograms (1,100 tonnes) of cocaine through Mexico and into the US, including by planes, trains, trucks and submarines. They maintained his actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of US and Mexican citizens.
Garcia Luna denied the allegations. His lawyers have said the charges against him were based on lies from criminals who wanted to punish his drug-fighting efforts and receive sentencing breaks for themselves.
“Nothing backs up what these killers, torturers, fraudsters and epic narcotics traffickers claimed about Genaro Garcia Luna”, his defence lawyer Cesar de Castro said in a closing argument.
