:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elfinanciero/UQG5WAPJ7VFIBJOSGRCF2N42QA.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "García Luna asks for a ‘chance’ for trial in the US; Lawyers ask to postpone it until 2023 – El Financiero")
The lawyers of Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security and who is accused of drug trafficking charges, have asked that the trial against the former official be postponed until at least January 2023instead of holding it this October.
In documents filed Tuesday night in the electronic system of the US federal courts, the lawyers argued that the volume of evidence presented by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York it’s huge and that therefore García Luna’s defense needs more time to review everything.
García Luna, who was Secretary of Public Security from 2006 to 2012 during the government of then President Felipe Calderónis accused in the United States of receiving millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for allowing the criminal organization to operate at will.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges including criminal association to distribute cocaine; involvement in an ongoing criminal enterprise, and lying to authorities. The former Mexican official, 53, He is in prison in New York.
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A ‘Mount Everest’ of evidence against García Luna
On Monday, the prosecutors announced that they plan to hand over to García Luna’s lawyer five electronic devices belonging to a prosecution witness, in addition to 4 thousand 900 recordings of another witness, as evidence before the future trial of the former official. They also said they have already turned in 6,100 pages of witness testimony in the case and plan to turn in an additional 7,500 pages.
Garcia Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castrostated in the letter introduced Tuesday night that, in total, prosecutors in the case have filed more than a million pages that the members of the prosecution consider as evidence against García Luna. In addition, many of the recordings presented, De Castro stressed, are in Spanish and, therefore, the defense team will need an interpreter.
De Castro proposed to the judge in the case, Brian Cogan, January 9 as the new trial date.
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