US Government Accused of Seeking to Conceal Deal Cut With Sinaloa “Cartel”, Ivokes "National Security" as Reason

Lawyers for Alleged Narco-Boss Zambada Niebla Claim Prosecutors Suppressing Evidence By Invoking National Security

The criminal case against accused Mexican narco-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla now appears to be threatening to unravel the U.S. government’s ugly national-security interests in the drug war.

Zambada Niebla, son of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa “Cartel,” arguably the most powerful international narco-trafficking organization on the planet, argues in his criminal case, now pending in federal court in Chicago, that he and the leadership of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization, were, in effect, working for the U.S. government for years by providing US agents with intelligence about rival drug organizations.

In exchange for that cooperation, Zambada Niebla contends, the US government granted the leadership of the Sinaloa “Cartel” immunity from prosecution for their criminal activities — including the narco-trafficking charges he now faces in Chicago.

The government, in court pleadings filed last month, denies that claim but at the same time has filed a motion in the case seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not become public during court proceedings.

To date, the US mainstream media has been completely silent on the US government’s effort to invoke CIPA in the Zambada Niebla case; so, kind readers, Narco News is the only authentic news publication providing you with the scoop.

In a motion filed with the court earier this week, on Sept. 29, Zambada Niebla’s attorneys argue that the government, in essence, is trying to suppress evidence critical to their client’s defense by seeking to invoke CIPA at a critical point in the court proceedings.

Zambada Niebla’s lawyers claim that the prosecution has, at this point, withheld evidence it is required to provide to the defense and is now attempting to cover its tracks and assure that evidence remains cloaked by arguing that it affects US national security.

Zambada Niebla’s attorneys, as part of their recent pleadings, are now asking the court for additional time to prepare their rebuttal to the government’s contention that Zambada Niebla was not operating under US-sanctioned immunity. The attorneys are asking the judge to delay the rebuttal deadline, now set for Oct. 17, until after the CIPA procedures are in place so that their client has access to the classified evidence necessary to prepare his defense.

CIPA, enacted some 30 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on the public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as details associated with clandestine FBI or CIA operations. The rule requires that notice be given to the judge in advance of any move to introduce classified evidence in a case so that the judge can determine if it is admissible, or if another suitable substitution can be arranged that preserves the defendants right to a fair trial.

From Zambada Niebla’s court pleadings filed on Sept. 29:

The defense cannot adequately respond to the government’s oppositions and support its motions without first understanding the nature, scope, and substance of the classified information in the possession of the government. The government’s obligation to produce documents is not limited to those in the possession of the DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI, but includes documents in the possession, custody, and control other agencies, including the CIA, DEA, ATF, ICE, IRS, NSA [National Security Agency], and the Department of Justice OCDETF [Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force].

... These agencies alone have relevant and material information to establish that they had knowledge that the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel were allowed to engage in drug trafficking activity but did nothing to prevent the trafficking or to arrest those leaders.

The defense here will be disadvantaged if required to file replies before the CIPA process has been initiated, much less completed, because it will not have the benefit of the very information that supports its motions.

Colombia Redux?

At the heart of Zambada Niebla’s defense is a Mexican attorney named Humberto Loya Castro, who, both the US government and Zambada Niebla agree, has worked as a contracted cooperating source, an informant, for the US government since at least 2005.

Loya Castro, according to Zambada Niebla’s court pleadings, served as an intermediary between US government agents (including the DEA and FBI) and the leadership of the Sinaloa organization — which includes Zambada Niebla; his father Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia; and the top capo of the Sinaloa drug organization, Joaquin Guzman Loera (Chapo).

“The central contention of all of [Zambada Niebla’s] motions is that Humberto Loya Castro, a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel, entered into an agreement on behalf of the Cartel lincluding the defendant Zambada Niebla] with several agencies of the United States Government to serve as an informant against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations,” Zambada Niebla’s recently filed court pleadings allege. “In return for the information he [Zambada Niebla] and others provided, the government agreed it would not share any of the information that it had about the Sinaloa Cartel and/or the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel with the Mexican government in order to ensure that the Cartel’s operations would not be disrupted and its leaders would not be apprehended.

“In addition, the government extended [Zambada Niebla and the leadership of the Sinaloa organization] immunity for [their] activities on behalf of the Cartel as a result of his cooperation. [As a result,] information related to the government’s use of sources, the methods implemented to combat international drug conspiracies, and inter-governmental cooperation regarding those efforts inevitably raises national security issues.”


(Good bit more at link, paints a pretty corrupt picture of the "drug war" and how it's intertwined with politics.)

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2011/10/us-government-accu...