Arturo Chávez Chávez (born 4 September 1960) is a Mexican

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

who served as

Attorney General of Mexico The attorney general of the Republic is the head of the Attorney General's Office (; prior to 2019, ) and the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office of the United Mexican States, an institution belonging to the Federal Government's constitutional ...

in the cabinet of President

Felipe Calderón Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (; born 18 August 1962) is a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between 2003 and 2004. ...

from 2009 until 2011. He previously served as

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

of Chihuahua during the governorship of Francisco Barrio. He has also worked as chief advisor to former Senator Diego Fernández de Cevallos, as Undersecretary of Legal Affairs and Human Rights at the

Secretariat of the Interior The Secretariat of the Interior (; SEGOB) is the executive department of the Mexican government concerned with the country's domestic affairs, the presenting of the president's bills to Congress, their publication in the ''Official Journal of ...

and as former envoy of the secretariat during the

2006 Oaxaca protests The Mexican state of Oaxaca was embroiled in a conflict that lasted more than seven months and resulted in at least seventeen deaths and the occupation of the capital city of Oaxaca by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The con ...

Chávez as Attorney General

His nomination to the post of

by President

on 2009 was received with harsh criticism from some human rights activists and relatives of the victims of the

female homicides in Ciudad Juárez An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and male ...

, Chihuahua, who, according to William Booth of ''

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', claim he did little during his years as Attorney General of the state to solve the killings of hundreds of women in the 1990s. Chávez was required by law to testify before the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

before assuming office. According to Ken Ellingwood of the ''

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'', his party held a numerical advantage in the 128-seat legislative chamber but lacked a clear majority, so it needed to reach for votes across the aisle. During the session, Chávez expressed his opposition to the death penalty, though the Ecologist Green Party had strongly campaigned for its implementation—and

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, which the Senate as a whole had recently voted to decriminalize in small amounts for personal use. In the end, his nomination was confirmed with 75 votes in favor, 26 against (mostly from the political left), and one abstention. However, his appointment was criticised by the United States in a leaked diplomatic cable as "unexpected and inexplicable". Chávez resigned on 31 March 2011 after 18 months as Attorney General, citing personal reasons, three weeks after the U.S. cable was made public. President Calderón described Chávez's work in office as having "been fundamental to Mexico's efforts to establish rule of law", and said Chávez was the reason many cartel leaders had now faced justice. Calderón has appointed Marisela Morales, head of the organized crime department in the Office of the General Prosecutor, as Chávez's successor.

Alleged organized crime infiltration

According to a leaked diplomatic cable issued in September 2009, the

United States government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

received information from "unpublished sources" that Chávez was allegedly infiltrated with a

drug cartel A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade. Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the i ...

in Chihuahua during his term as Attorney General. The cables mention that

Carlos Pascual Carlos Pascual could refer to: * Carlos Pascual (baseball) (1931-2011), Cuban baseball player *Carlos Pascual (diplomat) Carlos Pascual (born 1959) is a Cuban-American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Mexico, U.S. Ambassador ...

, the former U.S. ambassador in Mexico, sent the information of Chávez's collaboration with the organized crime groups to United States Department of State. Nevertheless, nothing about the former state Attorney General relationship with the drug cartels was confirmed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chavez Chavez, Arturo 1960 births 20th-century Mexican lawyers Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education alumni Living people Politicians from Chihuahua (state) Attorneys general of Mexico 21st-century Mexican lawyers