In a court filing yesterday federal prosecutors denied the claim made last month by Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla that he and other reputed leaders of the Sinaloa cartel had received immunity from prosecution in exchange for information on rival Mexican drug cartels as reported by Natasha Koreck for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Zambada is standing trial on drug charges in a federal court in Chicago, IL, and he made the claim in a motion to dimiss the indictment against him.
Federal prosecutors did admit authorizing DEA meetings with Mexican attorney Humberto Loya Castro as a "cooperating fugitive defendant" who was indicted in 1995 with reputed boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Zambada's father Ismael Zambada Garcia.
However, they never gave immunity to Zambada, and specifically instructed the DEA not even to meet with him according to the court papers. Zambada impermissibly is attempting to cloak himself with the cooperation arrangement the United States had with Loya Castro the federal prosecutors wrote as reported by The Associated Press:
Distilled, defendant's argument is that if one member of a criminal organization is indicted and cooperates, every member of that organization whether it is a drug trafficking cartel, a Mafia organization, or a street gang is immune from prosecution for all of their organization's criminal acts. That is not the law, and defendant's motion fails because of it.
Ineed, the mere fact that Zambada was arrested rather conclusively belies the existence of any immunity agreement, and the alleged drug lord has failed to explain why federal prosecutors would have reneged on such a deal even assuming one existed.
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