Nayarit Prosecutor's Office Will Challenge Edgar Veytia's Amparo Against Extradition To Mexico

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Best

In Mexico there are six arrest warrants against him for abuse of power, improper exercise of functions, kidnapping and dispossession of property.

Edgar Veytia, former Nayarit prosecutor.

In Nayarit, the authorities of the Attorney General's Office seek to challenge the amparo against extradition of the former prosecutor, Edgar Veytia, arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking, for conspiring to distribute cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Despite the fact that on August 11, 2022, in Mexico City, a federal judge granted an amparo to the former prosecutor to avoid being sentenced in Mexico, the Nayarit Prosecutor's Office announced that they are preparing a legal strategy to challenge the procedure in conjunction with the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR).

The state prosecutor, Petronilo Díaz Ponce, pointed out that in Mexico there are six arrest warrants against him for abuse of power, improper exercise of functions, kidnapping and dispossession of property.

“The request for the extradition of former prosecutor Veytia to try him in Mexico was activated since 2020, we sent notifications to the state of New York court so that when he finished serving his sentence he would be handed over to the Mexican authorities and consequently to the authorities of Nayarit. We will be waiting for the resolution to start with the corresponding procedures, "said prosecutor Díaz Ponce.

The Secretary General of the Government, Juan Antonio Echeagaray Becerra, described as inconceivable that the former prosecutor, through his lawyers, processed an amparo to avoid his extradition to Mexico.

“It is unfortunate, when there is sufficient evidence to proceed against him. We will be working in coordination with the federation so that justice is finally applied,” Echeagaray said.

On March 27, 2017, agents from the Customs and Border Protection Service detained the former prosecutor at the border bridge that connects the cities of Tijuana, Baja California and San Diego, California, while he was trying to enter this country.

On September 26, 2019, the former prosecutor was sentenced by the United States government to 20 years in prison and five more on "probation ", after on January 7 of the same year he pleaded guilty to participating in an international conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in exchange for receiving large bribes.

The conviction was issued by Judge Carol Bagley, who presided over room 10 D of the Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York.

However, of these crimes charged in the United States, in Mexico investigations are still continuing into the disappearance of people from 2017 to 2020, the date on which 29 clandestine graves were located with 143 bone remains in the municipalities of Tepic, Xalisco and San Blas, dispossession of property and abuse of power, crimes that are being attributed to the former prosecutor.

The Truth Commission, through its spokesman, Rodrigo González Barrios, assured that from the offices of the Justice Prosecutor's Office in the government of Edgar Veytia, people were tortured, people who were against the interests of the former prosecutor were ordered disappeared. 

In Nayarit, in addition to the former prosecutor Veytia sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States, the former PRI governor, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, is under trial in the El Rincón federal prison based in Tepic, Nayarit for the alleged crime of operations with resources of illicit origin.

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