“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Hector “El Güero” Palma Salazar
Magistrates of a Collegiate Court in Criminal Matters unanimously confirmed the granting of an injunction filed by the alleged drug trafficker Jesús Héctor Palma Salazar “El Güero Palma”, which puts him on the verge of a possible favorable ruling that could return his freedom in the next few days.
The confirmation of the amparo is so that the reinstatement of the procedure dictated in the second instance, as well as the order to locate the protected witnesses who testified against the Sinaloan in order to present evidence offered by him, will be without effect.
The resolution orders the lower court to definitively resolve the appeal filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office against the acquittal issued in favor of Palma Salazar, which should occur in the next few days or weeks.
The collegiate courts thus resolved the appeal for review filed by the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and which had been pending since April of last year, before the ruling was issued, the matter was referred to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), which a few months ago refused to take jurisdiction over the case.
On February 18, 2022, the Third Unitary Court in Jalisco (an authority that no longer exists), granted the injunction to “Güero Palma” against the second instance sentence of another Unitary Court that in July 2021 ordered the reinstatement of the procedure and decreed the re-incarceration of the plaintiff.
Jesús Héctor was already leaving the Altiplano prison, after he had already been acquitted by a District Judge of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the State of Jalisco and had to be reentered to the Federal Center of Social Readaptation number 1 “Altiplano”, in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico on July 13, 2021 at the request of the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic.
The revoked acquittal and the reinstatement of proceedings ordered by the Unitary Court was issued for the purpose of searching and locating the protected witnesses or collaborators Javier Burgueño Urías, code name “César”, as well as Marcelo Peña García, code name “Julio”, who testified against Héctor Palma during the preliminary investigation stage.
Both the unitary magistrate who granted the amparo to Palma, as well as the magistrates who now confirm the protection of federal justice to the plaintiff, consider that the fact that the evidence offered by the defendant himself (to locate the witnesses) had not been located and presented did not influence the sentence that was favorable to him and in no way harmed his procedural guarantees.
Now the Court of Appeals hearing the case has to resolve the merits of the charge of organized crime, and it is very likely that it will decide to confirm the acquittal, which if it does, would return the freedom to the man from the municipality of Mocorito, Sinaloa, almost 28 years after his arrest and his pilgrimage through prisons in Mexico and the United States.
“El Guero Palma”, 63 years old, was in the news again recently on February 9, 2023, when he was transferred from the “Altiplano” prison to the Adolfo López Mateos General Hospital in the city of Toluca, in a scheduled appointment for a medical check-up authorized by judicial control. After 40 minutes in the hospital, he was returned to prison in the midst of a very robust security operation by federal authorities.