Felipe Calderón, about the conviction of García Luna: "I have many doubts about the verdict"

Felipe Calderón and Genaro García Luna, in Mexico City, on August 27, 2010.Alexandre Meneghini (AP)

Felipe Calderón finally broke the silence after the trial against Genaro García Luna in the United States.

"I have many doubts about the verdict because I would have expected to see what the Prosecutor's Office announced so much: videos, recordings, photographs, account statements, deposits, and the truth is that none of that was shown," said the former president of Mexico before the inauguration of the Forum. of Aviation and Tourism, this Monday in Madrid.

It is the first time that the ex-president has given statements to the media after the conviction against his Secretary of Public Security for drug trafficking and organized crime.

"It is evident that there is a political-media persecution against me in Mexico," he said.

Former President Calderón avoided mentioning García Luna by name when questioned by Mexican correspondents.

"I am a man of laws and I respect the decisions of the courts, especially if they are made according to the law," insisted the politician, who last October obtained a residence permit in Spain.

The former president criticized the strategy of the Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which opted to build the case on the statements of cooperating witnesses.

"Everything was based on the testimonies of confessed criminals who, by the way, most of them in our Government persecuted, captured and extradited," he settled.

García Luna was found guilty on February 21 of the five charges he was facing in the United States: three for cocaine trafficking, one for organized crime and another for lying to the US authorities in his naturalization application.

The ruling exposed, as never before, the collusion between the Mexican authorities and drug trafficking, and meant the biggest setback for a high-ranking Mexican official in a US court. Calderón denied that the verdict against his right-hand man and the person the one he chose as the symbol of the war on drugs puts into question the legacy of his Administration.

"My government's security policy did not depend on one person," he said.

Still, Calderón was one of the main people affected by the revelations in the Brooklyn court.

Eight out of ten Mexicans believe that the former president should be investigated after the trial, according to a survey by Enkoll for EL PAÍS and W Radio that was published last month.

The politician, who is doing a stay at the Atlantic Government Institute of former Spanish President José María Aznar, blamed the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador for orchestrating a campaign to discredit him.

"The ruling is about using it to exacerbate that persecution that is almost personal," he claimed.

The former president maintained that he is not the only one who must respond to the accusations, after naming García Luna as part of his Cabinet.

The former official was director of the Federal Investigation Agency, created during the term of his predecessor, Vicente Fox (2000-2006).

"This official was someone who had been working in the Public Administration for years with two successive governments, trained in intelligence tasks, which are very rigorous in their trust control processes," he justified.

Calderón introduced himself as "the president who has most persecuted organized crime in Mexico" and underscored the cooperation in security matters that his government had with the White House.

“I never negotiated or made a deal with the drug traffickers, and I did defend all Mexicans with all the force of the law, with all the force of the State, and I would do it again,” he assured.

This is the same response that the former president gave after Édgar Veytia, a former Nayarit prosecutor and one of the witnesses against García Luna, declared that during the Calderón government the instruction was given to protect Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and the

de Sinaloa against the rest of the drug traffickers.

"I have never negotiated or agreed with criminals," he wrote on his social media.

After the ruling, the former president defended in a statement that "the resolution does not detract from the courageous fight of thousands of police officers, soldiers, sailors, prosecutors, judges, and good public servants who defended Mexican families from crime."

The last head of the Executive emanating from the National Action Party (PAN) had not had public appearances in which he ruled on the verdict.

Since the trial, López Obrador targeted Calderón, his main political rival.

The current Government filed a civil lawsuit in Florida in September 2021 to recover more than 700 million from a network linked to García Luna, accused of embezzling public funds during the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) and that of Calderón (2006 -2012).

In an interview with EL PAÍS, the national leader of the PAN, Marko Cortés, assured last week that he had not established communication with the former president.

"He will have to do his part," Cortés replied, when asked if the former president should respond after the trial.

"That man is possibly going to speak because he is going to seek to reduce his prison years and he is going to say the obvious, that he informed his bosses, Fox, Calderón and that he also had links to the DEA," he said. López Obrador on a possible cooperation agreement between García Luna and the US authorities, in his morning conference this Monday.

"I'm not Calderón," he said after in recent days he has exchanged accusations with the PAN of having established a "narco-state."

The president has taken advantage of the ruling against the former secretary to target his predecessors and, incidentally, respond to criticism of his security policy from conservative sectors of the Republican Party in Washington.

“How to trust the DEA?

Have they done very well?

They owe us an explanation.

Hopefully, before García Luna can become a protected witness, that they tell us what they knew about García Luna, about García Luna's bosses because they have remained silent, ”he declared.

Sentencing against the former official is expected to be handed down at the end of June in New York.

García Luna faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.

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