The First Day Of El Chapo's Trial

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The trial of Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán, one of the most important in the history of the fight against drug trafficking in the United States, was launched Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, amid explosive allegations of murder and corruption, and the fear of the jury to serve in such a notable case.

A discreet but strict security device surrounded the court building, which was attended by more than a hundred journalists from all over the world eager to follow one of the most awaited trials in recent times.

The opening with the presentation of the initial arguments of the prosecution had to be postponed as soon as the day began when the judge presiding over the case, Brian Cogan, reported that one of the twelve juries selected last week had communicated in a letter that the Anguish of participating in this cause had generated "medical problems", which he did not specify.

The judge pointed out that this jury, who had already cried last week when expressing his fear of serving in this trial, was very distressed and was running the risk of "bursting into tears" at any point in the process. For this reason they decided to excuse her, as well as a second jury who at the last moment claimed to be a self-employed person and therefore unable to spend up to four months without being able to attend to his business.

This forced the parties to find two new juries with the judge, which delayed the start of the trial until well into the afternoon.

Chapo was seen in better spirits, who came to court wearing an elegant suit and dark blue pants, white shirt and tie. Before sitting down, he approached the public benches a little, where his wife Emma Coronel was, to whom he sent a kiss and a greeting.

From then on, in the moments in which he was in the room, he did not stop looking towards his partner and mother of two of his daughters, at the same time as he was closely following the translation that the interpreters made in his ear, since the earpiece it didn't work.

Money, drugs and murders

After the long interruption, the judge finally began the trial, giving the floor to the prosecution team to offer their initial arguments, in which prosecutor Adam Fels described the Mexican drug lord as a brutal and bloody drug trafficker who throughout 25 years had created an "empire" based on the trafficking of Colombian cocaine to the United States.

According to Fells, Guzmán began his career as a small marijuana dealer in his native Sinaloa who managed to grow thanks to his expertise in getting his shipments to the United States through tunnels on the border. With the passage of time, cocaine arrived in the same tunnels to the United States, arriving by plane from Colombia. "They no longer called him El Chapo, they called him the rapid," said the prosecutor, referring to the speed at which he moved the shipments.

His organization grew in power and wealth from his work with Ismael el Mayo Zambada, with whom he recruited "a team of smugglers, pilots, assassins, and corrupt officials."

"They were doing so much business, it was difficult for them to keep track of all the shipments," added Fells, who noted that in only one operation a bloodthirsty gangster could enter, proud owner of a diamond-encrusted pistol with his initials and an AK-47 rifle. bathed in gold, he enjoyed a "private army" with which he "located, interrogated, tortured and executed" his rivals. "Guzmán came to do it himself," he said.

Even -always according to the prosecution- he even assassinated another drug dealer and his wife in front of a cinema for thinking that they had “disrespected him” and his own cousin, when he suspected that he was collaborating with the authorities.

For this reason, he did not hesitate to "sow corpses" in Ciudad Juárez and then Culiacán when he decided to eliminate competition in those two key cities on drug trafficking routes. "They will see a video of Guzmán questioning a rival," the prosecutor warned, and how "he pulled the trigger."

He also revealed that, in addition to his famous two Mexican prison breaks, he tried a third one when he was in a Ciudad Juárez prison awaiting extradition to the United States, which materialized in January 2017.

A vast conspiracy

In his reply, El Chapo's main lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, wasted no time denying his client's involvement in drug trafficking and focused his defense on describing him as a "scapegoat" singled out by the authorities to hide his collaboration with another more powerful boss that it would deserve the label of "the world's biggest drug traffickers".

“There is another version of this story, a very ugly version. A version that the government of Mexico and the United States do not want me to hear, "said the lawyer, who accused the authorities of both countries of bribing, conspiring and committing" horrible crimes "to hide their alleged collusion with drug traffickers.

Lichtman assured that El Chapo has been under the peephole of the Mexican government since he was blamed for the murder of Archbishop Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo in Guadalajara in 1993 to, according to him, hide the fact that the same authorities were responsible for his death.

Mexican authorities, with the assistance of the United States, have since created the "Chapo myth" to divert attention from the true drug lord, Mayo Zambada, from whom he said he was so powerful that he could order assassinations of the Army itself. Mexican.

"The current president of Mexico [ Enrique Peña Nieto] and the previous [ Felipe Calderón] have received hundreds of millions of dollars in May," said Lichtman, who repeated the serious accusation in case it had not been heard the first time.

A spokesman for Los Pinos flatly rejected the lawyer's claim, according to Reuters.

Lichtman also questioned the credibility of the repentant drug traffickers who will testify for the prosecution, a key part of the prosecution's case, warning that "they have lied since the day they learned to walk."

Just the beginning

The initial arguments of both parties were only the first salvoes of the duel that they will hold starting today in Judge Cogan's room on the eighth floor of the Brooklyn federal court, which can last up to four months.

The federal prosecution accuses Guzmán of leading a complex criminal organization based in Sinaloa that for three decades and through brutal methods - including thousands of murders - managed to enter the United States drug shipments valued at $ 14,000 million.

In total, he is charged with 17 charges for drug trafficking, criminal organization and bribery, of which if found guilty he could be sentenced to life in prison.