By EFE
02 Mar 2024, 17:04 PM EST
The United States Prosecutor’s Office opposed repeating the trial against Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico (2006-2012), and also accused him of offering money to inmates in the New York prison where he is imprisoned to make them give false testimonies. in his favor.
García Luna’s lawyers had requested a repeat trial against their client, arguing that they have received new evidence that would exonerate him after he was found guilty in February 2023 of corruption and drug trafficking crimes, and the deadline for the Prosecutor’s Office to respond to that motion was due Friday.
As expected, the Prosecutor’s Office objected and delivered a memorandum of about 90 pages with several sealed parts arguing the validity of the jury’s verdict, which considered Genaro Luna guilty of the five crimes with which he was charged, for which he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
“Even if the court were to accept the defense arguments as true, they leave untouched the compelling and corroborated testimony of multiple witnesses that the defendant accepted millions of dollars in cash from the Sinaloa Cartel and that he conspired to help him when his obligation was to pursue him.” “, they explain.
The judge, Brian Cogan, must issue a ruling on the former Mexican official’s defense motion for a repeat trial, possibly in a specific hearing that the Prosecutor’s Office has also opposed, requesting a simple and direct denial, according to with the document.
The defense has managed to postpone the hearing for García Luna’s sentencing, now dated for June 24, 2024, thanks to some supposed “new favorable evidence” against which the prosecutors have charged, ensuring that it was “dilatory maneuvers.”
The Prosecutor’s Office, in its brief, asked the judge not to repeat the trial, arguing that this new evidence, which alludes to a “conspiracy of witnesses”, is the product of bribes in the form of money and “incentives” by García Luna to others. prisoners to give false sworn statements and testimonies in their favor.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office’s own investigation, García Luna has hatched a “plot” from the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center and offered up to $2 million dollars to an inmate to help him with these purposes, money that would be given to through a “Mexican partner,” the document indicates.
Prosecutors assure that other “new evidence” was known to the accused or should have been before and during the trial, that it was available if “reasonable diligence” was carried out and, above all, that it does not discredit the “mountain” of evidence proven in the process against him.
García Luna, 55, was found guilty in February 2023 of four crimes related to corruption and cocaine drug trafficking that can carry life, and a fifth crime of giving false testimony to United States authorities when he applied for nationality.
Keep reading:
- Genaro García Luna requests a new trial after accusing prosecutors of irregularities
- Mexico recovers more than $2.5 million in assets from convicted former Security Secretary Genaro García Luna
- The Government of Mexico denounced the wife of Genaro García Luna for her alleged complicity