Mexican Drug Lord, “El Chapo” Guzman Extradited to US
Mexican Drug Lord, “El Chapo” Guzman Extradited to US
Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman will be extradited to the United States, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. Mexican authorities have made the decision on the condition that the world’s most wanted drug dealer would not be executed in the US.
The ministry said it has notified Guzman, who was recently moved to a prison close to the US border, that it had approved an extradition request filed by the Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas
Guzman was charged with “crimes of criminal conspiracy, crimes against public health, organized crime, possession of arms, homicide and money laundering,” according to the ministry.
A US Justice Department official confirmed that Washington had agreed not to seek death penalty, but declined to discuss any further details about the case or what will the department do pending Guzman appeal.
Guzman will have 30 days to appeal the decision, and his lawyers have already moved to block the extradition.
Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman’s lawyers, told Reuters he would file “many” legal challenges in the coming days, which could delay the imminent extradition for weeks.
Military personnel keep watch at a checkpoint on the perimeter of a high security prison where drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman is imprisoned in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, May 20, 2016. Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez
Having managed to repeatedly escape from Mexican prisons, Guzman proved to be a headache and embarrassment to Mexican authorities.
The recent recapture of Guzman dates back to January, six months after he succeeded in breaking out from a high-security penitentiary in central Mexico .
Guzman was tracked down following his secretive meeting with Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn who was looking to make his life story adapted into a film. Pan later published the interview with the drug leader in the Rolling Stone, an American publication.
Mike Vigil, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration chief of international operations, thinks the longer Guzman is held in Mexico, the more opportunities for the drug lord to stage another potentially embarrassing jailbreak.
In an interview with Reuters, Vigil said he was told by Mexican officials that it is currently costing the government 100,000 dollars per week to keep the kingpin captive.
“Mexico knows they have no penitentiary that can hold him given their limited resources and his power to intimidate,” said Vigil, who now works as an independent consultant. “I believe he will definitely die in a US prison cell.”
CCTV
