Mexico’s president and his predecessor have rejected allegations of bribe-taking made in the New York trial of drug kingpin Joaqu\u00edn “El Chapo” Guzm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
Mr Guzm\u00e1n’s lawyer told the trial that his client was a “scapegoat”.<\/p>\n
He said the real leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada who was living openly in Mexico and bribing the “entire” government, including President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto.<\/p>\n
Both Mr Pe\u00f1a Nieto and his predecessor Felipe Calder\u00f3n denied the claim.<\/p>\n
Guzm\u00e1n, 61, faces 17 charges and could be jailed for life if found guilty.<\/p>\n
He was arrested in January 2016 after escaping from prison through a tunnel five months earlier.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say the Sinaloa cartel is the biggest supplier of drugs to the US.<\/p>\n
Key associates, including one of his former lieutenants, are expected to testify against Guzm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
The trial, which opened on Tuesday amid high security, is expected to last about four months.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Lichtman said about his client: “He’s blamed for being the leader while the real leaders are living freely and openly in Mexico.<\/p>\n
“In truth he controlled nothing. Mayo Zambada did.”<\/p>\n
The lawyer also said that Zambada had been left alone because he bribed everybody “including the very top, the current president of Mexico and the former”.<\/p>\n
President Pe\u00f1a Nieto and Mr Calder\u00f3n immediately rejected the accusation, with the latter calling it “absolutely false and reckless”.<\/p>\n
source: bbc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mexico’s president and his predecessor have rejected allegations of bribe-taking made in the New York trial of drug kingpin Joaqu\u00edn “El Chapo” Guzm\u00e1n. Mr Guzm\u00e1n’s lawyer told the trial that his client was a “scapegoat”. He said the real leader of the Sinaloa Cartel was Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada who was living openly in Mexico and bribing the “entire” government,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2547\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}