That exact same reasoning, that Mexico has a superior interest in the case, is
what Sutton advanced in dropping the murder charges against Santillan.
From Sutton’s press release announcing the Santillan plea deal:
In dropping the additional charges in exchange for Santillan-Tabares’
guilty plea, Sutton said that Mexico has a superior interest in prosecuting
those responsible. All of the murders were committed in Ciudad Juárez, by
Mexican citizens, including law enforcement officials, and all of the
victims were citizens of Mexico.
Of course, with the charges dropped, the legal trail back to any cover-up has
been severed. There will be no public trial where the deeds of the U.S.
prosecutors and ICE agents can be exposed to the light of day.
Gonzalez says the case should have been brought to trial long ago, adding that
Santillan and Loya could have been indicted after ICE agents found out about the
first murder in August of 2003.
The murders were allowed to continue, several law enforcers contend, because
ICE agents and U.S. prosecutors also were running Lalo as an informant in a
separate cigarette-smuggling case. Pulling the plug on the Santillan case, they
explain, would have exposed Lalo’s cover, which would have scuttled the
cigarette case.
“Here’s the question,” Gonzalez said in an interview with Narco News. “How do
you indict someone for murders that the government could have prevented?”
“Isn’t that hypocrisy at its worst? You allow murders to take place so you can
indict (the murderers)?
“The main suspect (Santillan) could have easily been indicted for the first murder
and none of this would have taken place. And don’t forget all the other human
beings that were brutally murdered as a result.”
Pulling On the String
Keeping the informant out of the public eye appears to have been the strategy
ever since his role in the murders surfaced.
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