A judge ordered, on 21 October, mandatory pre-trial detention for César Jáuregui Moreno, the former Chihuahua prosecutor. The federal prosecutor’s office, FGR, accuses him of treason over the alleged presence of CIA officers at an operation on a drug lab in the Sierra del Pinal, in Morelos municipality, Chihuahua. Detention, not a conviction. Dump El Universal.

The hearing on whether to bind him over is Saturday, 24 October, at 15.00. FGR, in a statement reported by El Diario de Chihuahua, said it had charged possible participation in treason and put forward about 150 items of evidence. The defence asked to double the constitutional deadline. The judge continued the sitting on Saturday. A hearing, not a verdict.

El Universal’s sources: FGR called the conduct a lack of loyalty, arguing he had consented to foreigners taking part. It also cited what the United States recently did with Venezuela. That is the accusation’s argument. It is not a court finding that the CIA ran the raid. Interviews in the file, from 7 May, speak of two men in civilian clothes, hooded, who said “Hi”. El Heraldo wrote of four American agents. Two counts. Stay with the charge, not a confirmed headcount.

The defence objected to inaccuracies and said a ministerial accusation is not a judicial finding of guilt. The presumption of innocence holds. El Heraldo distinguishes a state file, in Chihuahua, from the federal treason case. Do not mix them.

Jáuregui resigned as prosecutor after the operation became public. Resignation is not a sentence. Mandatory pre-trial detention, in the Mexican system, is a custody measure for listed offences. It is not a conviction.

Dump El Universal. The rewrite rests on El Universal and on the FGR statement, via El Diario de Chihuahua.

Image: Palacio de Gobierno, Chihuahua, 21 February 2012, Ulises00, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The state government palace, not Saturday’s federal courtroom.

Sources consulted: Aportó FGR 150 datos de prueba en audiencia de Jáuregui — El Diario de Chihuahua.