MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday he does not agree with the criminal charges brought against former U.S. President Donald Trump in the United States.
“Supposedly legal issues should not be used for electoral, political purposes,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference. “That’s why I don’t agree with what they are doing to ex-President Trump.”
Trump was charged on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic case over allegations he orchestrated hush-money payments to two women before the 2016 U.S. election to suppress publication of their sexual encounters with him.
Trump, the first sitting or former U.S. president to face criminal charges, pleaded not guilty.
Leftist populist Lopez Obrador compared Trump’s case to the December ouster of former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office and arrested after trying to dissolve congress.
“It should be the people who decide,” said Lopez Obrador, who said he could not say whether Trump was guilty or not.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle and Valentine Hillaire; Editing by Anthony Esposito and Jonathan Oatis)
