MEXICO – The Mexican government will not pay for the legal defense of Salvador Cienfuegos, a former Army chief detained in the United States on drug trafficking charges, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported on Thursday.
“When it comes to Mexicans who are prosecuted, detained abroad, they are supported, there is consular assistance, but no resources are used to defend any alleged perpetrator of crimes, that possibility is not being considered,” he said in his round of morning press.
United States authorities They arrested Cienfuegos on October 15 in Los Angeles, who was head of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
The former Army chief, who had his last hearing on October 20 in New York, faces five charges of drug trafficking and money laundering following an investigation by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA, in English).
For this reason, the PRI deputies presented this week a point of agreement in Congress to ask the Government to assume the legal defense of Cienfuegos, something that López Obrador rejected this Thursday.
“Regardless of whether General Cienfuegos is responsible or not, we are going to defend the Mexican Army, which is a fundamental institution of the State,” argued the president.
The detention of Cienfuegos has also caused binational tension because Washington did not inform Mexico of the existing investigation.
Even the Mexican ambassador to the United States, Christopher Landau, admitted this Wednesday in a virtual event of the Baker Institute that he knew about the investigations when he assumed his position in 2019.
“We have made known to the United States our deep dissatisfaction that this information has not been shared with our country,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Thursday at the National Palace press conference.
The retired general Cienfuegos was one of the most reputable soldiers in the Army and highly esteemed among the troops.
But his career is now clouded by this arrest and by the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa.
Meanwhile, López Obrador has had to balance his speech against the corruption of past governments with backing the Army, an institution to which he has given an increasingly active role in his government.
“I believe that the trial is just beginning, and both the accuser and the accused will present evidence, and if there is no evidence, then they have to release General Cienfuegos in this case and he would also have the possibility to report, “he said.
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