Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called lawyer César de Castro, who is defending former Mexican Security Secretary Genaro García Luna during his trial in a U.S. district court, a «slanderer».
García Luna is on trial in a Brooklyn, New York district court for allegedly being linked to organized crime and accused of being on the «payroll» of the Sinaloa Cartel after being arrested in Dallas, Texas.
During the trial, Mexican drug trafficker Jesús ‘Rey’ Zambada, who testified as a witness, denied having paid seven million dollars to Gabriel Regino, former undersecretary of Public Security in Mexico City, for an electoral campaign for López Obrador in 2006.
For his part, Garcia Luna’s defense countered Zambada by assuring that he did not remember having sent money to the current president through Regino and also criticized that the drug trafficker was confused about the amounts, calling into question his credibility.
The drug trafficker claimed on Monday that he paid $5 million in two separate bribes to Garcia Luna, who was head of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), through lawyer Oscar Paredes, who also worked for the Sinaloa cartel.
«What happened yesterday is a clear sign (of) wanting to involve me. Fake lawyer, slanderer, crooked; Zambada turned out to be more right,» said López Obrador in reference to the words of García Luna’s lawyer, as reported by the newspaper ‘El Universal’.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)