Mexico arrests former senior police official over torture allegations

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MEXICO CITY, July 5 (Reuters) – A former senior police official, once considered central to Mexico’s battle against drug cartels, was arrested on Monday for torturing suspected kidnappers in 2012, authorities said Mexican.

Luis Cardenas Palomino, with Federal Police from 2010 to 2012, was the next commander of former Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna, who was arrested in the United States in 2019 for receiving bribes to help the Sinaloa cartel.

Both held those positions under former President Felipe Calderon, whose so-called war on drugs sparked gang turf conflicts that led to record levels of violence.

Cardenas and another former law enforcement officer were indicted in an indictment against Garcia Luna in October, when they were both on the run.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at a regular press conference shortly after the arrest described Cardenas as Garcia Luna’s “second in line” and said the detention underscored his administration’s zero tolerance approach to crime. ‘impunity.

Officials arrested Cardenas early Monday after raiding a building in Naucalpan, a suburb north of Mexico City, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The statement did not detail the case in which Cardenas was accused of torturing kidnapping suspects.

Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Drazen Jorgic and Richard Chang

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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