‘Scapegoat for drug lord who bribed Mexico’s president’

Alawyer for accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman told a New York jury in opening remarks that his client was a scapegoat for the real leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

“He’s blamed for being the leader while the real leaders are living freely and openly in Mexico,” attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said on the first day of Guzman’s trial for drug smuggling in Brooklyn federal court. “In truth he controlled nothing. Mayo Zambada did.” Lichtman also said that Zambada had been left free because he “bribes the entire government of Mexico including the current president of Mexico,” Enrique Pena Nieto.

Pena Nieto’s spokesman rejected the accusation: “That is false.” Lichtman’s statement came after Assistant US Attorney Adam Fels laid out the US government’s case, describing how prosecutors would prove that Guzman rose from a marijuana trafficker in the 1970s to lead the powerful Sinaloa Cartel. Guzman faces 17 criminal counts and a possible life sentence if he is convicted.

Lichtman spent much of his opening statement attacking the credibility of the US government charges. “Why is the government going so far in this case using these gutter human beings as the evidence?” he asked. “It’s because the conviction of Chapo Guzman is the biggest prize this prosecution could ever dream of.” Lichtman urged jurors to “keep an open mind” and consider that both Mexican and US law enforcement could be corrupt. “They work together when it suits them, Mayo [Zambada] and the US government,” he said. Lichtman also strove to humanise the defendant, describing his childhood selling oranges, cheese and bread door-to-door in a poor village.