MEXICO CITY ā Mexico said Monday it has arrested a former leading police official on charges of torture from nearly a decade ago.
Former Federal Police commander Luis Cardenas Palomino was considered the right-hand man of former security secretary Genaro GarcĆa Luna. GarcĆa Luna is now being held on drug trafficking charges in the United States.
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U.S. prosecutors have also accused Cardenas Palomino of accepting millions in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, once run by imprisoned drug lord Joaquin āEl Chapoā Guzman. It was not clear if Mexico would consider extraditing Cardenas Palomino.
President AndrĆ©s Manuel LĆ³pez Obrador hailed the arrest as a sign Mexico would no longer tolerate corruption and abuse, but said he did not know if Mexico would extradite Cardenas Palomino.
āHe was detained because there is no longer impunity, and that helps a lot,ā said the president, whose administration has struggled to find a policy to handle the drug cartels. LĆ³pez Obrador, for example, ordered the release of one of Guzman's sons to avoid bloodshed.
Mexicoās attorney generalās office said Monday that Cardenas Palomino was arrested on the outskirts of Mexico City on charges he tortured a kidnapping suspect in 2012.
U.S. prosecutors allege GarcĆa Luna took tens of millions of dollars in bribes to protect Guzmanās Sinaloa cartel. GarcĆa Luna, who is awaiting trial in New York, has denied the allegations.
GarcĆa Luna served from 2006 to 2012 as Mexicoās secretary of public security before relocating to the U.S. He was arrested in 2019 in Texas.
Cardenas Palomino served as a top commander in the now-disappeared federal police during the same years. He and GarcĆa Luna were best known in Mexico for allegedly staging a 2005 raid for TV cameras, leading to the arrest of two supposed kidnapping suspects, even though the suspects had been detained illegally hours earlier.
Author JosĆ© Reveles said Cardenas Palomino was āone of GarcĆa Luna's main operatorsā and would be āa witness with privileged informationā on his former boss, adding he would most likely be extradited.
President AndrĆ©s Manuel LĆ³pez Obrador cited widespread corruption and abuses in the federal police as a big factor in his decision to abolish the force in 2019 and roll some of its officers into the National Guard.