By Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican federal agents arrested on Wednesday the security chief of the central state of Aguascalientes on charges of torture, the attorney general’s office told Reuters.
The state government, which is ruled by the PAN opposition party, confirmed the arrest of Porfirio Javier Sanchez, pledging in a statement “full cooperation” with federal authorities.
The attorney general’s office gave no detail about the torture charges.
Sanchez has served as Aguascalientes’ secretary of security since 2018.
Previously, he worked in the now-defunct Federal Police and has ties to Mexico’s former Security Chief Genaro Garcia Luna, who is in detention in the United States facing charges linked to a multi-million-dollar bribery scheme allegedly designed to benefit the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Reuters did not have any information about any legal representative for Sanchez.
(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, additional reporting by Dave Graham, writing by Laura Gottesdiener, editing by Robert Birsel)