AZMEX SPECIAL 11 AUG 2013
Note: Very interesting and significant background. As often suggested here, new "understandings", "agreements" being made, and old ones revived. Still some negotiations ahead as to "senior" vs "junior" status given realities of the past dozen years. Second piece from Noroeste in Culican, well worth reading.
But with two corrupt federal governments, probably nothing to come of it.
Other kingpin in DEA killing may be freed
OBSERVERS: US UNLIKELY TO PRESSURE MEXICO IF LATEST APPEAL IS GRANTED
8 hours ago • Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Defense attorneys believe freedom is imminent for a second member of the trio of Mexican drug kingpins responsible for the 1985 slaying of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, one of the capo's attorneys said Saturday. In the U.S., outrage grew over this week's surprise decision to overturn Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero's conviction in the notorious killing.
Caro Quintero walked free Friday after a federal court overturned his 40-year sentence in agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena's kidnapping, torture and murder. The three-judge appeals court in the western state of Jalisco ordered Caro Quintero's immediate release on procedural grounds after 28 years behind bars, saying he should have originally been prosecuted in state instead of federal court.
Also imprisoned in the Camarena case are Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, two of the founding fathers of modern Mexican drug trafficking, whose cartel based in the northwestern state of Sinaloa later split into some of Mexico's largest drug organizations.
Fonseca Carrillo's attorney, Jose Luis Guizar, said his team had filed an appeal based on the same procedural grounds used by Caro Quintero, and expected him to be freed within 15 days by a different court in Jalisco.
"The appeal is about to be resolved. We believe that the judges will stick to the law," Guizar said. "Fonseca Carrillo should already be on the street. He should be at home. At its base, the issue is the same as Rafael's."
He said he had not spoken to Felix Gallardo's attorneys about their expectations for that case. Mexican officials did not respond to calls seeking comment Saturday.
Camarena's murder escalated tensions between Mexico and the U.S. to perhaps their highest level in recent decades, with the Reagan administration nearly closing the border to exert pressure on a government with deep ties to the drug lords whose cartel operated with near impunity throughout Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that it found the Mexican court's decision to free Caro Quintero "deeply troubling," but former DEA agents said they were pessimistic that the Obama administration would bring similar pressure to bear.
Nearly 20 years after the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S.-Mexico trade exceeds $1 billion a day. The two countries have worked closely against drug cartels over the last seven years, with the U.S. sending billions in equipment and training in exchange for wide access to Mexican law-enforcement agencies and intelligence.
The U.S. said little last year after Mexican federal police opened fire on a U.S. Embassy vehicle, wounding two CIA officers in one of the most serious attacks on U.S. personnel since the Camarena slaying. Twelve police officers were detained in the case but there is no public evidence that the U.S. or Mexico pursued suspicions that the shooting was a deliberate attack by corrupt police working on behalf of organized crime.
"I'm sure there's going to be a lot of complaints about it but do we have a Department of Justice that's going to stand up for this right now? I don't think so," said Edward Heath, who ran the DEA's Mexico office during the Camarena killing. "Everybody's happy, businesswise. Trade is fine, everybody is content."
President Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office in December, has been restricting U.S. access as part of a broader shift in Mexican law-enforcement strategy from taking down cartel chiefs to reducing daily violence, particularly extortion, kidnapping and homicide. That shift has raised doubts in Washington about Mexico's ongoing commitment to fighting drug trafficking, doubts that grew stronger Saturday after Caro Quintero marked his second full day as a free man, with no public sign of his whereabouts.
The U.S. alleged as recently as June that Caro Quintero continued to run an extensive drug ring from behind bars, working with the Sinaloa cartel to move drugs and launder the proceeds through a string of front businesses.
"We've been asking Mexico to follow the rule of law, and I don't know if this is exactly the rule of law that they're following," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who closely monitors border issues. "There should have been some sort of heads-up notice that this was going to happen.
end
Note: well worth the read even in computer english
CASE CARO QUINTERO
The PRI, beneficiary of the release of Caro Quintero: Anabel Hernández
For the journalist, to give freedom to him without telling US, so that the drug trafficker was captured, it prevents opening the cloak of 'system PRI'
Gabriel Mercado
11/08/2013
For Anabel Hernandez, renowned journalist and author of books like The Lords of Narco and Mexico on Fire: The Legacy of Calderon, the release of drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero after 28 years in jail, is very symbolic and disturbing for a PRI government.
In a telephone interview with NOROESTE, the expert researcher in organized crime said that the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985 as one of the darkest episodes of the Mexican governments involved with drug trafficking, which his detention opened a sewer networks of corruption and collusion of public officials to organized crime.
"The murder of DEA agent allowed were discovered deep ties between drug traffickers Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, among others, not only with the police commanders in Mexico, but Mexican politicians even the most high level, "says Hernandez.
Exemplified by Ruben Zuno Arce, former local MP in Jalisco and brother-in-law of former President Luis Echeverria, who from 1989 until his death in 2012 served a sentence in the United States, precisely by being involved in the murder of Enrique Camarena.
"The fact that the brother-in-law of the President of the Republic," says, "has been arrested, has been found guilty, shows the level of penetration, the level of collusion and corruption, collusion between drug dealers of the time and the PRI governments. "
In her book The Lords of Narco, journalist makes these remarks, for which classified and declassified documents used in the same CIA, the DEA, the U.S. Congress and the Court of Angels, which was settled around the Camarena case and was brought to trial at trafficker Juan Matta Ballesteros and Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, who was accused of participating in torture.
"El Principe", how other drug dealers called Caro Quintero, was also a very violent man and took several lives, not just the U.S. agent, and no such cases were tried, accused Anabel.
Patching the wound
The suspicion arises Quintero released by the PGR does not appeal to any of the actions brought by his lawyers and allow his freedom, further weighing not warning the U.S. of the status of the process.
Caro Quintero was acquitted in Mexico, commanded by the Second Unitary Court on Friday released from prison o after Prime Collegiate Criminal Court will grant an injunction on August 7, citing irrelevance to proceed with the trial.
According to the Court, the murder of the agent was tried in federal courts, rather than in the state courts, as befitted procedurally, because Camarena was not diplomatic or consular agent.
But federal authorities never told to the United States, that they follow a process of extradition, and trial for the murder of Camarena, plus violent crimes and trafficking of marijuana and cocaine, among other offenses, since May 1987 Central District court of California.
The same U.S. government issued a statement saying they was "extremely disappointed" with Mexico by this release.
Anabel Hernandez, who works with Proceso and Reporte Indigo, adding that it's likely that Caro Quintero, 60, was not in the country, having no longer the age nor the power to try to lift his fallen empire and possibly the Sinaloa cartel gave him a safe conduct "pass" to leave Mexico and evade extradition.
"It is impossible that the PGR, the prosecution has not known or tracked all these injunctions sought by drug lord himself, is impossible not to have known in advance with enough time actually was going to release him suddenly, it is not possible PGR is surprised, they had to be follow point by point the appeals, "he said.
He said hence the anger of the United States, because they know how the judicial process in our country and to some extent the PGR, the Mexican government deceived them by not telling them how the case would progress, and this could impact on a penalty against us as a nation.
For a journalist, this is to protect the image of the PRI and to former government officials of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, who was the president at the time.
"Do not forget, if Rafael Caro Quintero was brought to trial in the United States, it could reopen one of the more rotten wounds of the PRI system, because it would take the court again, would be holding a public hearing, he would have to testify again into all corruption and collusion that existed between the Guadalajara cartel would have to reopen the sewer ... The main victim of being brought to trial in the United States Rafael Caro Quintero would be the PRI and the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, "says the writer.
"What we do is that surely cause many officials who were involved at that time had to be called to account to the United States, that would be another be collateral damage to the U.S. Caro Quintero, the courts would request the declaration or likely extradition of these PRI officials or even be arrested, "he adds.
Specified, as reflected in the documents in his possession, protection of drug traffickers seen since the Secretary of Defense at the time, Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, then return to sit on the table of Caro Quintero would show Mexico has again a equal to more than 30 years ago, a country of violence reluctant to change.
"Back to testify all this in the United States reopen that old wound of a Mexico that does not change, there is no difference with the Mexico of today in state and municipal governments made before the drug, the drug making and unmaking, and killing and kidnapping as a want, unfortunately this episode of Enrique Camarena reminds us that Mexico has not changed at all, "lamented the journalist.
"Do not forget, if Rafael Caro Quintero was brought to trial in the United States, reopen one of the more rotten wounds PRI system, because it would take the court again, would be holding a public hearing, he would have to testify again into all corruption and collusion that existed between the Guadalajara cartel would have to reopen the sewer ... The main victim of being brought to trial in the United States Rafael Caro Quintero would be the PRI and the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, "says the writer" .
Anabel Hernandez
Journalist and author
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