New York, United States.- After three days of interviews with nearly 200 candidates, the jury was formed that, starting Monday, will judge the former Secretary of Security of Mexico, Genaro García Luna, for drug trafficking in a New York court.
After answering questions about her ability to be impartial, personal issues or hearing her opinion on drugs and reliability in the justice system, Judge Peggy Kuo selected seven women and five men to serve on the jury, as well as six alternates. .
The 18 members are obliged to attend every day during the eight weeks that the trial is estimated to last, which sits on the bench the highest-ranking Mexican official appearing before the US court, accused of five charges, including drug trafficking, which can lead to spend the rest of his days in jail.
Although García Luna has attended the selection of the jury since Tuesday, the trial begins on Monday with the arguments of the prosecution and the defense.
According to the New York Prosecutor’s Office, who was director of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) between 2001 and 2005 and Secretary of Public Security under the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), helped the Sinaloa cartel and its boss, Joaquín “Chapo ” Guzmán (sentenced to life imprisonment by US justice), to introduce 53 tons of cocaine into the United States, becoming one more “member” of the conspiracy.
The name of García Luna arose precisely in the trial of “Chapo” Guzmán in which one of the witnesses, the then member of the Sinaloa cartel Jesús “Rey” Zambada, recounted that he had given the “super policeman” suitcases with between six and eight million dollars in bribes, between 2005 and 2007.
The same judge who tried El Chapo, Brian Cogan, will judge García Luna, who left the Government of Mexico in 2012 and settled in the United States, whose nationality he requested in 2018.
The name of García Luna is also linked to that of the French Florence Cassez and her ex-partner Ismael Vallarta, arrested in 2005 in an operation prepared for the media, for leading an alleged network of kidnappers. The case brought diplomatic relations with France to the brink of rupture. Cassez was released in 2013 but Vallarta is still being held without trial.
The current Government of Mexico, which has requested his extradition to the United States, also accuses him of diverting more than 200 million dollars from the treasury to his family companies.
