Mexican authorities on Sunday launched the process to extradite drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the US, as they also sought to question US actor Sean Penn over their clandestine meeting.
The extradition bid marks a reversal from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s refusal to send Guzman across the border prior to his escape in July last year from a maximum-security prison.
The Mexican Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that Interpol Mexico agents went to Guzman’s prison near Mexico City to execute two arrest warrants for his extradition, two days after he was captured in a deadly military raid.
Photo: Rsuters / Rolling Stone
Mexico received the US extradition requests last year on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking and homicide. Guzman is wanted in a half-dozen US states.
After judges rule on the extradition, the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs has to issue a decision, which Guzman can appeal.
His attorney has vowed a “tough” legal fight that could reach the Mexican Supreme Court.
Guzman is now back in the same prison that he escaped from on July 11 last year when he snuck down a hole in his cell’s shower that led to a 1.5km tunnel outside the prison.
Officials defended the decision to send him back to the Altiplano prison, about 90km west of Mexico City, saying it remains one of the most secure in the nation and that the cells were reinforced with metal rods under the floors. A tank is stationed outside the prison.
While Guzman could face US justice, Mexican authorities said they wanted to question Penn over his October meeting with the then-fugitive.
A Mexican official said that the attorney general’s office also wants to speak with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who brokered the meeting.
US rock magazine Rolling Stone on Saturday published the interview that Guzman gave to the actors in an undisclosed jungle clearing in Mexico.
Despite Penn’s cloak-and-dagger efforts to keep the gathering secret, another Mexican official said that authorities found out about the meeting, which eventually helped them track down the Sinaloa drug cartel chief.
Guzman was recaptured on Friday in the seaside city of Los Mochis, in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa, in a military operation that left five suspects dead.
Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez on Friday said that Guzman met with unnamed actors and producers to discuss making a biopic about himself and that it was part of a “new line of investigation.”
The meeting sparked criticism in the US, where Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio told ABC television that the interview was “grotesque.”
Journalists questioned the ethical merits of the interview.
Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron tweeted a link to a story published in December last year about the dangers and death faced by Mexican journalists, commenting: “Good moment to remember what happens to real journalists who cover Mexican drug traffickers.”
Penn wrote that they had a seven-hour sit-down, followed by telephone and video interviews.
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” Guzman said over sips of tequila. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
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