The head of the Mexican cartel “El Mayo” Zambada files a lawsuit…

NEW YORK (AP) — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel who faces drug trafficking charges in a U.S. court, appeared for the first time Friday before the presiding judge his trial.

Zambada, 76, appeared at a status conference in Brooklyn federal court before District Court Judge Brian Cogan, who sentenced fellow countryman Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to life in prison behind the bars after being convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.

Prosecutors say Zambada and Guzmán transformed the Sinaloa Cartel into a massive manufacturer and trafficker of illicit narcotics, bringing huge quantities of drugs into the United States. Zambada has pleaded not guilty.

Long wanted by U.S. law enforcement, he was arrested in July after arriving on a private plane at a Texas airport with Guzmán’s son, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities. Guzmán López faces drug trafficking charges in Chicago and has also pleaded not guilty.

Since Zambada and Guzmán López were arrested in the United States, their rival cartel factions have been clashing in the state of Sinaloa. This week, a dozen shots were fired at a building housing a local newspaper in the capital, Culiacan. The newspaper said no one was injured.

Separately, U.S. authorities announced charges Thursday against a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who they say runs a drug trafficking network out of Mexico and is protected by the Sinaloa cartel.

At Friday’s status conference, prosecutors told the judge that some of the evidence in the case against Zambada was classified and that his defense attorneys would need clearance, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

The judge set Zambada’s next court appearance for January 15.

Earlier in the week, in the same courthouse, Cogan sentenced Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former public security secretary, to more than 38 years in prison for accepting millions of dollars in bribes for protect the Sinaloa Cartel.