Thread: Smuggling suspect got immunity in case of convicted border a

Smuggling suspect got immunity in case of convicted border agent

By Jerry Seper

The Washington Times

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A suspected drug smuggler, whose 2008 arrest resulted in a two-year prison sentence for a U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of violating his civil rights, was interviewed by officials at the Mexican Consulate in Texas and later made available to testify against the agent under a grant of immunity, records show.

The suspected smuggler, then 15, told Mexican officials he had been beaten and threatened by agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. following his Oct. 16, 2008, arrest near Eagle Pass, Texas. Consulate officials interviewed the teenager just hours after he had been detained.

In a letter that same day to the Border Patrol, the consulate officials demanded the agent be prosecuted and complained they had not been notified of the arrest, learning about it through another source, who was not identified. They said that after their interview, the teenager was repatriated to Mexico, where he would be made available to testify in the case.

The consulate officials also accused Diaz of using excessive and unnecessary force, striking the youth several times in the ribs, threatening to hit him again if he didn’t reveal where the drugs had been stashed, and lifting his handcuffed arms behind his back.

In a handwritten note attached to the consulate letter, the teenager said he entered the United States illegally with six other persons, crossing the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. He said the group had stopped to rest when they were joined by others who carried backpacks with drugs. He said Border Patrol agents spotted them, and he was placed under arrest.

In Spanish, the teenager wrote that Diaz used excessive force, lifted both his arms behind his back while he was handcuffed, forced him to the ground by putting his knee in the teenager’s back, and kicked him in the ribs. In the statement, he said the abuse lasted seven minutes.

The teenager also said he did not know anything about the drugs reportedly being carried into the United States, although the U.S. attorney’s office on the day of the Diaz sentencing said that during the trial, the teenager had “admitted that he was smuggling marijuana at the time he was apprehended.â€

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