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Ruben Rocha Moya again denies allegations he shielded cartel, says taking \u2018temporary leave\u2019 to defend self.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The governor of Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa state has temporarily resigned days after being charged by United States authorities in a sweeping drug trafficking indictment that has further strained relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n In a brief video statement posted late Friday, Ruben Rocha Moya again denied any wrongdoing, but said he was taking \u201ctemporary leave\u201d to defend himself against the US allegations.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The indictment unsealed by US prosecutors earlier this week claimed that Rocha Moya and nine other officials directly aided the Sinaloa drug cartel in its smuggling operations in exchange for political support and bribes.<\/p>\n That support included members of the powerful cartel kidnapping and threatening opposition candidates in the 2021 election and stealing paper ballots cast for those running against Rocha Moya, the indictment charged.<\/p>\n Rocha Moya is a member of President Claudia Sheinbaum\u2019s progressive Morena party.<\/p>\n \u201cMy conscience is clear,\u201d Rocha Moya said in the video message. \u201cTo my people and to my family, I can look you in the eye because I have never betrayed you, and I never will.\u201d<\/p>\n Juan de Dios Gamez Mendivil, the mayor of the Sinaloa state capital Culiacan who was among the other officials charged by the US, also announced he would step down on Saturday. He has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum has also pushed back on charges, which come at a time when she has sought to navigate tense relations with the administration of US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n On Thursday, she said her government had not been provided with any concrete evidence to back up the claims, suggesting the information laid out in the indictment was insufficient.<\/p>\n \u201cMy position on these events is as follows: truth, justice and the defence of sovereignty,\u201d Sheinbaum said.<\/p>\n She added that if \u201cclear and irrefutable evidence\u201d is presented, the US still must proceed \u201cin accordance with the law under our jurisdiction\u201d.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum maintained her government will not \u201cshield anyone who has committed a crime\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, if there is no clear evidence,\u201d she added, \u201cit is evident that the aim of these charges by the [US] Department of Justice is political.\u201d<\/p>\n Since taking office in January of last year, the Trump administration has heaped pressure on Mexico to do more to address migration and drug smuggling.<\/p>\n The approach has included Washington imposing a host of tariffs as leverage against Mexico\u2019s government.<\/p>\n The US State Department has also labelled several Latin American drug cartels as \u201cForeign Terrorist Organisations\u201d, an unorthodox move in line with the administration\u2019s more militaristic approach to Latin America.<\/p>\n The administration has broadly argued that the criminal groups are driven, in part, by efforts to destabilise the US, a claim rejected by many longtime experts.<\/p>\n Sheinbaum has walked a careful line with Trump, increasing cooperation in countering cartels while pledging to protect Mexico\u2019s sovereignty. Notably, she has staunchly opposed the prospect of any US military action on Mexican soil.<\/p>\n But experts have said charging elected officials in Mexico represents a major escalation in the Trump administration\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n Speaking to Al Jazeera this week, Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-state armed groups at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, DC, said the approach had \u201clong been considered a very big step, almost a \u2018nuclear option\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n She predicted more US indictments were likely to come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ruben Rocha Moya again denies allegations he shielded cartel, says taking \u2018temporary leave\u2019 to defend self. The governor of Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa state has temporarily resigned days after being charged by United States authorities in a sweeping drug trafficking indictment that has further strained relations between the two countries. In a brief video statement posted late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Tense US-Mexico relations<\/h2>\n
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