A Mexican national pleaded guilty over the killing of a US border agent which threw a spotlight on the United States’ controversial “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking operation, prosecutors said.
In a plea deal, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes admitted first degree murder in court in Tucson, Arizona in connection with the death of agent Brian Terry, shot dead in December 2010 on the US-Mexico border.
“Agent Terry was killed in the line of duty courageously safeguarding our border,” said US Attorney for the Southern District of California Laura Duffy.
“Our country owes him and his family a great debt of gratitude for his ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. Today’s plea is an important step in seeking justice on behalf of Agent Terry,” she added in a statement.
The botched ‘Fast and Furious’ operation, a US effort to track guns into Mexico that left drug cartels with high powered weapons, was launched in 2009, but was suspended after the border agent’s killing.
The aim was to build cases against gang members by knowingly allowing them to purchase assault weapons in the United States, then tracing those weapons to crime scenes in Mexico.
But most of the roughly 2,000 weapons were never found, while two of them that were showed up at the murder site of agent Terry on December 14, 2010.
Under a plea deal, Osorio-Arellanes admitted that he and others were in the United States to rob drug traffickers of their contraband on the evening in question, and ended up in a fire fight with border patrol agents.
The Mexican, who was arrested on the night of the shooting, faces up to life behind bars.
“Today’s plea agreement signifies an important step forward in the Brian Terry murder investigation by bringing one more individual to justice,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent James L. Turgal Jr.
“The FBI continues to aggressively pursue the remaining two fugitives: Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, Ivan Soto-Barraza, and Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes,” added the agent, in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix office.
Mexican pleads guilty in 'Fast and Furious' killing
