Investigations Into BATFE Accelerate (A Crude Chronology Since late March 2011)

[Ed Jewett]

CIA Wants Court to Invoke Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) in Case Involving Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla

September 13th, 2011Via: Narco News:
The fingerprints of the CIA have surfaced in a controversial federal criminal case pending in Chicago against Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, an alleged kingpin in the Sinaloa "drug cartel."
US government prosecutors filed pleadings in the case late last week seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not surface in public court proceedings.
"The government hereby requests that the Court conduct a pretrial conference … pursuant to CIPA … at which time, the government will be prepared to report to the Court and defendant [Zambada Niebla] regarding the approximate size of the universe of classified material that may possibly be implicated in the discovery and trial of this case," states a motion filed on Friday, Sept. 9, by US prosecutors in the Zambada Niebla case.
CIPA, enacted some 30 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on the public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as those associated with CIA operations. The rule requires that notice be given to the judge in advance of any move to introduce classified evidence in a case so that the judge can determine if it is admissible, or if another suitable substitution can be arranged that preserves the defendants right to a fair trial.
"That is a very reasonable conclusion [that the CIA is likely involved in this case in some way]," says a former federal agent familiar with national security procedures. "Seeking CIPA protection, yup, there is hot stuff to hide."
Zambada Niebla, extradited to the US in February 2010 and now facing narco-trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, claims in pleadings in his case that the US government entered into a pact with the leadership of the Mexican Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization that supposedly provide its chief narcos with immunity in exchange for them providing US authorities with information that could be used to target other narco-trafficking organizations.
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Interestingly, there also is a Guantanamo Bay connection in the Zambada Niebla case that might lead to some classified information surfacing in his case.
Zambada Niebla, as the US government-described "logistics coordinator" for the Sinaloa organization, is linked to alleged Sinaloa organization money-launderer Pedro Alfonso Alatorre Damy via a Gulfstream II jet (tail number N987SA) that crashed in Mexico in late 2007 with some four tons of cocaine onboard.
That aircraft was allegedly purchased with Sinaloa organization drug money laundered through Alatorre Damy's casa de cambio business and a U.S. bank. And that same aircraft was reportedly suspected of being used previously as part of the CIA's "terrorist" rendition program and allegedly made a number of trips to Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and 2005, according to media reports and an investigation spearheaded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In addition, the Gulfstream II was purchased less than two weeks before it crashed in Mexico by a duo that included a U.S. government operative who allegedly had done past contract work for a variety of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, according to a known CIA asset (Baruch Vega) who is identified as such in public court records. The four tons of cocaine onboard of the Gulfstream II at the time of its crash landing, according Vega, was purchased in Colombia via a syndicate that included a Colombian narco-trafficker named Nelson Urrego, who, according to Panamanian press reports and Vega, is a U.S. government (CIA) asset.
Posted in Covert Operations, Economy