US President Barack Obama rejected a request from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to kill Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, in Mexican territory, according to a series of documents from intelligence and security firm Stratfor.
According to information published in the Latin Times, Stratfor pointed out that among the five million documents leaked by WikiLeaks in 2012, there are some messages from Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence, in which are described interactions between Mexico and U.S. intelligence between 2007 and 2011.
The documents identified by WhoWhatWhy, a journalistic investigation website, revealed that over three years ago the DEA had identified the location of the Mexican drug trafficker and asked the White House for permission to kill him; however, the American government refused.
"The DEA had a window of opportunity to deliver El Chapo, but the White House wouldn't let us do it", wrote Burton in an email dated February 24, 2010. "Don't do it", quotes Burton's email.
According to the leaked documents, quoted by the Latin Times, in July 2010 a second email from Burton explains that DEA Special Operations presented a plan to enter Mexico and assassinate El Chapo. "Obviously the decision came back as no. Never made it past the deputies committee", he wrote.
Finally, the newspaper points out that in the last of the memos, dated April 2011, the vice president of intelligence said that "Obama won't approve a finding for cover action inside Mexico based on 'moral ground'".
It's worth noting that Burton points out that the then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón, "has told a few that violence has reached a point that he would turn a blind eye to unilateral CIA or DEA actions, if they wanted to go down that path, as long as he has 'plausible deniability'".
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