New York City, New York (April 15, 2021) US prosecutors said on Thursday they have more than one million pages of documents to be used as evidence against former Mexican Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, whom they accuse of drug-related charges.
The District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Mark Lesko sent a letter to the federal judge in the case in which he explains that the prosecution also has a “voluminous” number of intercepted recordings. The letter is in the electronic system of the US federal courts.
García Luna is indicted by US prosecutors for charges that include conspiracy to traffic cocaine, false testimony, and participation in a criminal organization. The former official is in a New York jail.
García Luna, who was Secretary of Public Security from 2006 to 2012 during the government of then-President Felipe Calderón, has pleaded not guilty to the accusations of prosecutors, who allege that he received huge amounts of money from the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, in exchange for allowing him to traffic cocaine at ease.
The prosecution and García Luna’s lawyers are preparing to go to trial. Lesko said in his letter that the prosecution has made requests for mutual legal assistance to foreign officials. Some affirmative responses have been received, he said, and others are still awaited. The prosecutor also asked the judge to postpone the judicial hearing on the case that was scheduled for this month since the prosecution needs more time to prepare the trial.
The judge in the case is Brian Cogan, the same one who presided over the trial against El Chapo Guzmán in 2018.
Source: La Jornada
