Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated his opposition to the criminal charges filed against former US President Donald Trump.

“Supposedly legal issues should not be used for electoral or political purposes,” Lopez Obrador said during a regular press conference. “That is why I oppose 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.

Lopez Obrador, who took office in 2018, developed a friendly working relationship with then-counterpart Trump, despite the U.S. president launching his 2016 campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and drug runners and promising to make Mexico pay for a border wall.

The Mexican president largely cooperated with demands on migration from the Trump administration.

Lopez Obrador in November publicly called for Twitter to reinstate Trump’s then-banned account on the social media platform.