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Mexico arrests former top police official for torture

FILE - In this June 28, 2012 file photo, Luis Cardenas Palomino, chief of the regional security division of Mexico's federal police, points to surveillance camera footage at the international airport related to a shooting, during a press conference in Mexico City. Mexico said Monday, July 5, 2021, that it has arrested the former leading police officers on charges of torture from nearly a decade ago. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File) (Esteban Felix, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

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 ā€œEl 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.

ā€œHe 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.

Mexicoā€™s attorney generalā€™s 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 Guzmanā€™s Sinaloa cartel. GarcĆ­a Luna, who is awaiting trial in New York, has denied the allegations.

GarcĆ­a Luna served from 2006 to 2012 as Mexicoā€™s 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 ā€œone of GarcĆ­a Luna's main operatorsā€ and would be ā€œa 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.


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