{"id":17855,"date":"2020-11-18T00:11:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T05:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=17855"},"modified":"2020-11-18T00:13:58","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T05:13:58","slug":"salvador-cienfuegos-zepeda-us-to-drop-charges-against-mexican-ex-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/11\/18\/salvador-cienfuegos-zepeda-us-to-drop-charges-against-mexican-ex-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda: US to drop charges against Mexican ex-minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p><b class=\"css-14iz86j-BoldText e5tfeyi0\">The US is to drop its charges against a Mexican former minister accused of drug trafficking and laundering money.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Gen Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda &#8211; who was Mexico&#8217;s defence secretary from 2012 to 2018 &#8211; was arrested at Los Angeles airport last month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Prosecutors said he had links to the &#8220;extremely violent&#8221; H-2 drug cartel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>But on Tuesday the US Department of Justice said it would seek to dismiss the charges so he could be investigated and possibly charged under Mexican law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>The 72-year-old pleaded not guilty to the charges last month. He was due to appear in US federal court in New York on Wednesday before the news broke.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"unordered-list-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<div class=\"css-1pzprxn-BulletListContainer e5tfeyi3\">\n<ul role=\"list\">\n<li><a class=\"css-yidnqd-InlineLink e1no5rhv0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-latin-america-40480405\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A guide to Mexico&#8217;s most powerful drug cartels<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"css-yidnqd-InlineLink e1no5rhv0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-latin-america-50315470\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How dangerous is Mexico?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>US Attorney General William Barr and Mexico&#8217;s Fiscal\u00eda General Alejandro Gertz Manero issued\u00a0<a class=\"css-yidnqd-InlineLink e1no5rhv0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/joint-statement-attorney-general-united-states-william-p-barr-and-fiscal-general-mexico\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a joint statement<\/a>\u00a0about Gen Cienfuegos on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>It said the US had taken the decision to seek dismissal of charges &#8220;in recognition of the strong law enforcement partnership between Mexico and the United States, and in the interests of demonstrating our united front against all forms of criminality&#8221;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Gen Cienfuegos served under former President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto. As the most senior member of Mexico&#8217;s armed forces he played a major role in the country&#8217;s war on drugs, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i81\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>BBC Mexico correspondent Will Grant says there were accusations of complicity between the state and the country&#8217;s powerful drug cartels throughout Mr Pe\u00f1a Nieto&#8217;s presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-54982305\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The US is to drop its charges against a Mexican former minister accused of drug trafficking and laundering money. Gen Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda &#8211; who was Mexico&#8217;s defence secretary from 2012 to 2018 &#8211; was <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/11\/18\/salvador-cienfuegos-zepeda-us-to-drop-charges-against-mexican-ex-minister\/\" title=\"Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda: US to drop charges against Mexican ex-minister\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[2885,7450,1695,92,521,7449,4974],"class_list":{"0":"post-17855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-drug-trafficking","11":"tag-h-2-drug-cartel","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-mexico","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-salvador-cienfuegos-zepeda","16":"tag-us-department-of-justice","17":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17857,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17855\/revisions\/17857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}