Mexican actress Kate del Castillo passed another hurdle in her lawsuit against the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR), obtaining a court ruling that will allow her case to proceed.
The lawsuit, which had previously been dismissed, was filed on December 21, 2018. It demands US $60 million from the FGR for “moral and material damages” to her person related to actions taken by the FGR (then called the PGR) during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.
According to Alejandro Rojas, del Castillo’s lawyer, the lawsuit is not against any specific functionary, but against the FGR as Mexico’s top justice institution.
Del Castillo says that her persecution by the Mexican government started in 2015 when she met with cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to discuss the possibility of making a film about his life. The drug lord was arrested shortly afterwards, and del Castillo spent the next three years in self-imposed exile in California to avoid being forced to testify by the PGR.
The actress returned to Mexico in December 2018 after Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office as president.
The actions for which del Castillo seeks compensation include irregularities in an investigation that attempted to link her to Guzmán, as well as for leaks of FGR documents indicating she was being investigated for involvement in one of the drug trafficker’s prison escapes.
The lawsuit says that the actions amounted to “political persecution” and that the amount of $60 million is based on “expert evidence.”
Before her links to Guzmán became public, del Castillo was known for portraying fictional crime bosses in telenovelas like La Reina del Sur and Dueños del Paraíso.
