Mexican Attorney General Gertz Manero resigns to become ambassador

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, a veteran politician who has faced accusations that he used his position for personal and political gain, resigned on Thursday to become an ambassador.

In a Senate session, presiding officers read a letter by Gertz Manero requesting that his resignation be accepted after President Claudia Sheinbaum nominated him as “Mexico’s ambassador to a friendly country,” without name the country.

The 86-year-old, who preferred to stay out of the spotlight, had held public security positions since the 1970s and been Mexico’s attorney general for the almost seven years.

In January 2019, he became the country’s first attorney general who was supposed to be completely independent of political power. But his time in the post was marked by his close ties to the then-president who nominated him, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Civil organizations have long criticized him for these close ties.

He remained attorney general after the election of Sheinbaum, who took office in October 2024. A loyal successor to López Obrador on most issues, Sheinbaum has distanced herself from her predecessor on security matters, partly due to strong pressure from the United States, a country with which Gertz Manero had significant disagreements.

Under Sheinbaum, the Attorney General’s Office participated in two successful extraditions of a total of 55 major drug traffickers imprisoned in Mexico to face trial in the United States. Among them was Rafael Caro Quintero, accused of the 1985 murder of a DEA agent.

“We need much more coordination between state prosecutors and the Attorney General’s Office,” especially on security issues, Gertz Manero said hours before his resignation was made public.