The sabre and the gavel: Cienfuegos and the impunity of the Mexican military
Retired Mexican General Cienfuegos, who served as Minister of Defence in Peña Nieto’s cabinet in 2012-18, has been cleared of all charges. He had been arrested in the US in October on serious accusations of drug trafficking. This angered and alarmed the Mexican military, fearful that the trial would disclose the army's wider involvement in the drug trade. The generals pressed the left-wing López Obrador government to secure repatriation. After heated back-channel negotiations, the US attorney general decided to release him under the pretext that he would be prosecuted in Mexico. Unsurprisingly, this has not happened.