dismembered the corpses to impress his boss. The idea was to create a crime scene gory enough that “it would be big news.”

He said the idea for coordinated assassinations against the U.S. Consulate employees arose from Barrio Azteca’s suspicion that someone in the consulate was helping the Sinaloa Cartel move drugs into El Paso. The Camel testified that street prices in Texas for drugs supplied by the Sinaloa Cartel were too low for Barrio Azteca to match. He and other leaders made inquiries but found no satisfactory explanation for how Sinaloa could sell its drugs so cheaply. They must have had friends in high places, he testified; someone in the consulate might have been providing visas for Sinaloa smugglers to enter the United States legally. A visa inhe made to the FBI prior to his extradition to El Paso. He alleges that Mexican authorities, acting on behalf of the United States, tortured him into making false statements. He claims that he was beaten, hanged by his arms, electrocuted and forced to listen while his wife was raped in an adjacent room. The statements he gave to the FBI, the defense document reads, “were the product of torture at the hands of Mexican officials and improper psychological pressure by the F.B.I. agents.”

According to the mistaken-identity theory, the Juarez Cartel wanted to kill someone aligned with Sinaloa seen driving a white Honda Pilot. Benny Gallegos gave the order, and The Camel spread the word to his network of enforcers to be on the lookout. The SUV in