Mexican governor and mayor indicted by US for drug trafficking step down

Two members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s party in the north-western Sinaloa state said they would temporarily step down from their posts after the United States charged them and eight other politicians and security officers with drug trafficking.The bombshell indictment against the 10 has shaken Mexico’s political establishment.In a short video announcement at midnight on Friday, Gov Rubén Rocha Moya, the highest-ranking official named in the indictment, denied accusations that he protected the Sinaloa cartel and helped it smuggle vast quantities of drugs into the US in exchange for political support and millions of dollars in bribes.“My conscience is clear,” said Rocha, 76, a longtime ally of influential former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “To my people and to my family, I can look you in the eye because I have never betrayed you, and I never will.”But he said he would take a temporary leave of absence from the position he has held for six years to defend himself against what he called the “false and malicious” allegations and cooperate with the Mexican government’s investigation.Juan de Dios Gámez Mendívil, the mayor of the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacán named in the indictment, also said he would take leave and