Prosecutors seek life in prison for Genaro García Luna, Mexico's former security secretary

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District Court in Brooklyn, New York, requested life imprisonment for former Mexican Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, who was found guilty of several charges, including drug trafficking, by a popular jury early last year.

"It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the defendant's crimes, the deaths and addiction he facilitated, and his betrayal of the people of Mexico and the United States," chief prosecutor Breon Peace argued to the investigating judge. He also recalled that Garcia Luna "exploited his power and authority" as the head of law enforcement for more than a decade by accepting “millions of dollars in bribes from a drug trafficking organization he was sworn to prosecute (the Sinaloa Cartel).”

The convicted former secratary rejected the accusations in a letter to the press last week, in which he argued that prosecutors had relied on false information provided by the Mexican government and witnesses he had prosecuted when he was at the forefront of the fight against drug trafficking in his country. "My honor is intact; I have not committed any crime," he wrote.

The 56-year-old former Mexican official was convicted last year on five charges linked to drug trafficking. The sentence, which has been postponed several times, will finally be announced on October 9.