Drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's defense told his New York trial Tuesday that his cartel bribed Mexican presidents, painting the absent co-defendant as a ruthless criminal who murdered in cold blood.
Opening statements finally got underway after two jurors were dismissed from the lineup, forcing lawyers and the judge to re-interview potential candidates before the full panel could be sworn in.
One woman was struck after complaining that the trial was causing her health problems, along with a man who said he would not be able to support himself financially during the trial. Two replacements were subsequently found.
Guzman, one of the world's most notorious criminals, is on trial in New York after twice escaping from prison in Mexico. He faces 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges in what is expected to be a more than four-month trial.
He is accused of leading the Sinaloa cartel and turning it into the largest criminal organization on the planet. He is considered the world's largest drug trafficker since the death of Colombia's Pablo Escobar.
But in opening statements, the defense alleged that Guzman's co-defendant who remains at large, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, was the real culprit.
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"The truth is he (Guzman) controlled nothing, Mayo Zambada did," Jeffrey Lichtman told the US federal court in Brooklyn.
Zambada, he alleged, bribed everybody, "including the very top, the current president of Mexico and the former," he added in reference to Mexico's outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.
Both Calderon and Pena Nieto swiftly denied taking any bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, the former calling the allegation "absolutely false and reckless" and the latter saying it was "completely false and defamatory." - Gold-plated Ak-47 -