Mexico's Attorney General Flip-Flops About Extraditing Drug Kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán

[Valin]

Forbes
Dolia Estevez
2/2/15

The U.S. government has formally requested the extradition of jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, according to informed sources. The extradition request for Guzmán, who is currently in a maximum security prison in Mexico, was delivered last week to Mexico’s Foreign Ministry by the U.S. Embassy, the sources said.

 

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But last week, Murillo backtracked. This time he argued that keeping Guzmán in Mexico was an issue of “national sovereignty,” according to the AP. “El Chapo must stay here (in Mexico) to complete his sentence and then I will extradite him. So about 300 or 400 years later — it will be a while.” The longest jail sentences in Mexico are 50 years. An individual can be sentenced multiple maximum terms, adding up to hundreds of years.

 

Murillo’s assertion that Guzmán must first serve his sentence in Mexico contradicts U.S. and Mexican laws. In 1997, the two countries signed a Protocol to the 1978 bilateral Extradition Treaty allowing convicted criminals to be extradited before or while serving a sentence. Article 1, point 2 of the Protocol, reads: “The Requested Party, after granting an extradition request made in accordance with this Treaty, may temporarily surrender a person who has been convicted and sentenced in the Requested Party, in order that the person sought may be prosecuted in the Requesting Party before or during service [emphasis added] of sentence in the Requested Party,” says the Protocol.

 

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H/T Friends of Ours