Mexican presidents accused as defense opens El Chapo trial

NEW YORK (AFP) — Drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is the “scapegoat” of a cartel that bribed Mexican presidents, the defense told his New York trial Tuesday, as the prosecution branded him a ruthless criminal boss who murdered in cold blood.

The substantive phase of the case finally began with opening statements at what is expected to be one of the most expensive trials in United States history after two jurors were dismissed at the last minute.

One woman was struck after complaining that the trial was causing her health problems, along with a man who claimed financial hardship, forcing lawyers and the judge to find two replacements before the full panel was sworn in.

Guzman, considered the world’s largest drug trafficker since the death of Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, is on trial in New York under draconian security arrangements after twice escaping from prison in Mexico.

He faces 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges that will likely see him incarcerated for the rest of his life in a maximum security US prison if he is convicted at the end of the more than four-month trial.

Guzman is accused of leading the Sinaloa cartel, turning it into the world’s largest criminal group and of smuggling enough cocaine “for 328 million lines” – equivalent to more than one per every person in the US.

In opening statements, however, the defense alleged that Guzman’s codefendant Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who remains at large, was the real culprit.

“The truth is (Guzman) controlled nothing, Mayo Zambada did,” Jeffrey Lichtman told the US federal court in Brooklyn.

Zambada, he alleged, bribed everybody, “including the very top, the current president of Mexico and the former,” he added in reference to Mexico’s outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

Both Calderon and Peña Nieto swiftly denied taking any bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, the former calling the allegation “absolutely false and reckless” and the latter saying it was “completely false and defamatory.”