As Rafael Caro Quintero is fighting extradition to the US for the 1985 kidnap, torture, and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavalar Avelar, another major participant in that hideous crime, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, is being released from prison by order of a Mexican judge, and he will be confined under house arrest after being in prison for more than three decades.
The below article from today's Excelsior is translated by Fousesquawk.
Judge grants house arrest for Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, ex-leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, will leave Puente Grande prison in Jalisco.
Caption: Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was in prison since April 1989
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, the "boss of bosses" and ex-leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, will leave the prison of Puente Grande, Jalisco because a judge granted him house arrest.
Given his advanced age and state of health, the judge decided to change the (level of custody) for Felix Gallardo, who has been in custody since April 1989 for his participation in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, DEA agent and Mexican pilot, Alfredo Zavalar Avelar.
In August 2021, Felix Gallardo gave his first interview in prison, in which he appeared in a wheelchair, blind in one eye and deaf. The so-called "boss of bosses" confessed that his health "was terrible" and that he had no (prospects) for life.
Felix Gallardo, who has been in custody more than 30 years, had already previously petitioned for house arrest given the deterioration of his health, nevertheless, until now, the petition had been denied.
In February 2019, a federal tribunal denied him (judicial relief) in order to complete the rest of his 37-year-old sentence at home.
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Fousesquawk comment:
This is a gut punch to the entire DEA family, both active and retired. An impartial reader might say, based on the information in the above article, that this action is, for lack of better words, the reasonable and human thing to do. I entirely disagree.
As a retired DEA agent who never had the privilege to meet Enrique Camarena and who was never stationed in Mexico (My wife is Mexican), I still feel outrage over what happened to him and Mr Zavalar in 1985. Over the course of days, they were subjected to torture so horrific that it defies any human understanding. The men responsible for these two murders should never see the light of day, no matter how old (Felix Gallardo is 76), how sick, how many years they have served, or how close they may be to death.
Mexico has no death penalty, and frankly, their entire judicial and penal system has long been rife with corruption. This entire, decades-long saga has been a blot on the government of Mexico. I don't mean to sound like I am preaching because, in the past several years, I have been shocked and appalled at the political corruption that has exploded in our own country. Nonetheless, we can only hope and pray that Mexico will apply proper justice to the perpetrators of those unspeakable murders of Enrique Camarena and Alfredo Zavalar Avelar. Our own government should never stop seeking the extradition of these vicious criminals as another avenue of bringing justice. Nobody who was involved in this atrocity should ever be allowed to walk free again.
1 comment:
I believe that There still is a warrant for his arrest. But, it would be difficult to prosecute him in the US. Thanks Gary for writing this article. Felix is a criminal who got caught due to his criminal associates. He definitely was at the house where KIKI was Tortured and probably died. His involvement should have put him in jail for the rest of his life or the death penalty.
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