On August 1, 2012 the PGR received notifications from the district judges for federal criminal trials in Nayarit [in western Mexico] to get itself on top of the "false" testimony that these people were giving.
Despite this, the Special Deputy Attorney General for Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO) continued using protected witnesses to further compile more documents to send General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare to prison.
Milenio has a copy of the acquittal in the case of Rodolfo de la Guardia García and Ricardo Gutiérrez Vargas, former directors, respectively, of regional deployment for the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) and of Interpol Mexico, warning the PGR of these facts.
In the judgment written by the second district federal criminal judge in Nayarit, Laura Serrano Alderete, she refers to the testimony given by witnesses code named Felipe (José Alberto Pérez Guerrero), Jennifer (Robert Lopez Najera ), Saul (Milton Carlos Cilia Perez), David (Roberto Garcia Garcia) and Maria Fernanda (Richard Arroyo).
"What has been presented up to this point demonstrates the mendacity with which the prosecution witnesses conducted themselves. According to the arguments presented here, it is clear that Rodolfo de la Guardia García, director of AFI Regional Deployment, was not legally entitled to carry out the actions attributed to him, and Ricardo Gutiérrez Vargas, in his capacity as Director General of International Police Affairs and Interpol, made no inquiry into communications regarding organized crime; nor was it in his powers to facilitate that people linked to the Sinaloa cartel coming from Colombia could freely pass the review established at the airport.
"It is noted that the agent of the Federal Public Ministry did not comply with the obligation under Article 4 of the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure to provide evidence to demonstrate fully the existence of a crime," she said.
For that reason "is not legally possible, given the ineffectiveness of the evidence analyzed, to have proven the crime of organized crime with the aim of committing crimes against health [i.e., drug-related crimes]," she said.All of the proceedings integrated in the record of the investigation were signed by the former head of SEIDO, Marisela Morales Ibáñez, who, at the time, was Attorney General.
The protected witnesses said Rodolfo de la Guardia worked for the Sinaloa cartel and sold positions of AFI commanders in various parts of the country. For these misrepresentations, he was held without charges for 87 days during investigation and then spent more than four years in prison.
Ricardo Vargas, the witnesses said, provided protection to the Sinaloa cartel, particularly to people who came from Colombia and arrived at the Mexico City International Airport. Supposedly, he handed over dossiers from the offices of Interpol-Mexico regarding the extradition of persons connected with organized crime.
The protected witnesses said that the former officials committed these crimes between 2005 and 2006. Rodolfo de la Guardia had left the PGR three years previously.
These people began to testify against the former officials in July 2008, but their words proved to be false, the federal judge determined. Spanish original