Lion Heart 15,041 Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s decision Friday to approve the extradition of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán helps clear the way for the infamous drug lord to face what has long been his worst nightmare: living behind bars in a U.S. prison. The extradition of Guzmán, who has publicly claimed responsibility for delivering much of America’s cocaine and heroin and has fought bloody battles with rival traffickers, could still be months or even years away. His lawyers vowed Friday to appeal the ruling by the Mexican Foreign Ministry. But the government’s decision marks a recognition that the political stakes have changed dramatically since Guzmán escaped for a second time from a Mexican federal prison last summer. After his first recapture in 2014, Mexican authorities rejected U.S. pressure and vowed to force Guzmán to face justice on his home soil, making it a point of pride that they could hold him secure, extract intelligence from him and successfully convict him for his role leading the Sinaloa drug cartel. Those boasts collapsed last July when Guzman slipped away from a maximum-security prison west of Mexico City through a mile-long tunnel and went on the lam in the rugged mountains of his home state along Mexico’s Pacific coast. This time, after Guzmán was recaptured in January, President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration has moved methodically toward extraditing him to the United States. The president’s approval ratings have already fallen from earlier in his term, fueling worries about enduring another humiliating escape. ... Guzmán now has up to 30 days to appeal the Foreign Ministry’s decision, which his lawyers have told Mexican news outlets they plan to do. A judge then will determine how to proceed. Guzmán’s lawyers have at least two attempts at appeal, which could drag the process out for months, a Mexican official said. Now that the Foreign Ministry has acted, “it’s in the judiciary power’s court,” the official said. One of Guzmán’s lawyers told a television station that any extradition would take “at least one to three years.” The decision struck some Mexicans as an admission that they did not have a prison capable of holding such a powerful prisoner. “There’s an absolute lack of confidence in the Mexican judicial system,” said Martin Barron Cruz, a criminologist at the National Institute of Penal Sciences, who has written about the drug war. “For the corruption, for the impunity. Sending him to the United States is a way of saying, ‘I’m stepping around this judicial problem, because I don’t have the sufficient capacity to handle it.’ ” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexico-approves-the-extradition-of-chapo-guzman/2016/05/20/fbf3dcee-1ebb-11e6-82c2-a7dcb313287d_story.html ▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Featured Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.