This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/20/el-chapo-mexico-approves-extradition-us-charges

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Mexico approves El Chapo's extradition to US to face charges Mexico approves El Chapo's extradition to US to face charges
(about 2 hours later)
Mexico’s foreign ministry said on Friday it had approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to the United States, and had received guarantees that the death penalty would not be sought against him. Mexico’s foreign ministry has approved the extradition of cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to the United States, where to the two-time escapee would face charges ranging from murder to money laundering to conspiracy to import cocaine – and, if convicted, presumably find fewer opportunities for slipping out of prison unannounced.
The ministry said he would face charges in US federal courts in Texas and California, but the process can still be appealed, meaning it could be weeks or months before the Sinaloa cartel leader may be sent north. In a statement released on Friday, the foreign ministry said it received assurances Guzmán would not face the death penalty, a punishment not carried out in Mexico. It added that Guzmán, is allowed to appeal the extradition decision though legal experts see scant chances of success.
Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzmán’s lawyers, told Reuters he would file “many” legal challenges in the coming days. “They want to send him right away,” says Octavio Martínez, law professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana, who said Guzmán’s recent transfer to a prison in Ciudad Juárez on the border with Texas was a way to “hinder, to a certain point, the defence he could have”.
El Chapo, as he is known, was the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel and one of the world’s most wanted drug kingpins until his capture in January, six months after he broke out of a high-security jail in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel. He estimated the appeal process could drag on for at least a year.
Lawyers for Guzmán told Mexican media on Friday they would seek an injunction against extradition, saying they would take the case to the supreme court if necessary.
Friday’s announcement was in relation to federal charges in California and Texas on money laundering, murder, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, weapons offenses and organized crime charges. Guzmán has also been indicted by prosecutors in Brooklyn.
The decision to extradite Guzmán reverses previous Mexican policy to imprison him at home – a decision that backfired when El Chapo escaped from a high-security jail in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel which opened onto his cell’s shower.
The escape was seen as a personal blow for the president, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the international embarrassment it caused may well have helped the Mexican government’s change of heart.
Guzmán gained notoriety in Mexico and abroad for his audacious escapes and larger-than-life biography. The kingpin’s eagerness to retell that story in movie form led him to arrange a meeting with actors Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn, and unwittingly revealed his location to Mexican intelligence agents.
He twice escaped prison: first in in 2001, when he was wheeled in a laundry cart out the front door of a Guadalajara lockup, and again in 2015 as he slipped through a shaft connecting the shower in his cell with a mile-long tunnel built during his detention by associates.
Related: Blood, mud and lube: how El Chapo's luck came up short in small town sex motel
Mexican marines detained him most recently in January and returned him to the maximum security prison, where he was kept under constant surveillance and, his family protested, not allowed to sleep.
Sending him to the United States makes sense, according to analysts, as his escape showed immense shortcomings in the Mexican prison system.
“Because of [his] profile, with an important criminal group behind him, he could have influence in a lot of prisons and could be an uncomfortable figure to have in many parts of the country,” says Diego Mendoza, a criminal defence lawyer in Mexico City.