El Güero' Palma Secures Amparo; Could Obtain His Freedom

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

The drug trafficker Héctor Luis "El Güero" Palma Salazar obtained an injunction that annuls the judicial decision that ordered the reinstatement of the organized crime procedure against him last year.

The amparo was granted in favor of the individual designated as the founder of the Guadalajara Cartel and could obtain his freedom.

According to Judge Ricardo Delgado Quiroz, head of the Third Unitary Court of the Third Circuit, reinstating the proceeding against Palma Salazar, currently an inmate in the Altiplano federal prison, State of Mexico, affects his rights because the extension of the declaration of two collaborating witnesses - for which the recapture of Palma Salazar was ordered - was declared exhausted since 2017 and 2018 because it wasn’t possible to carry them out.

In one case because the witness was declared absent and in the other because there was a material impossibility to dismiss their appearance.

Of this, the magistrate explained, the Federal Public Ministry was informed and never resorted to challenging the agreements.

If this circumstance were to continue, the process against Palma Salazar would be prolonged indefinitely and without justification, which contravenes the constitutional principle of expeditious justice.

In addition, both witnesses testified against the drug trafficker, whom they linked to a shipment of more than 3,000 kilos of cocaine seized in July 1999 in Colima.

Another of the accusations was that Palma Salazar orchestrated the murder of the deputy director of the Judicial Police of Nayarit, Antonio Contreras, which occurred in May 1995.

Based on the new resolution, the federal court that ordered the reinstatement of the proceeding against Palma Salazar must issue a new resolution in the coming days that will shed light on the defendant's permanence in prison.

Excelsior