Court Reverses Previous Decision to Send El Chapo to the US if Recaptured Roque Planas - The Huffington Post
go to original October 24, 2015

Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán has escaped from prison twice. (Marco Ugarte/Associated Press)

Mexico won’t send twice-escaped drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera to stand trial in the United States if authorities manage to recapture him.

A Mexican judge extended Guzmán a provisional exemption from extradition, Mexican news site Animal Político reported Thursday. The ruling marks a reversal from the decision announced in August to hand Guzmán over to U.S. authorities if he were arrested once again.

A State Department spokesman said the U.S. does not comment upon pending extradition requests before they become public judicial proceedings and that it was Mexico’s sovereign right to decide whether to send Guzmán to the United States.

Since he was arrested last year, Guzmán’s attorneys have sought to avoid his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking. The U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for information that leads to Guzmán’s capture.

Extraditing such a high-profile felon is a politically sensitive issue in Mexico, where leaders often bristle against U.S. interference in their affairs. Former Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam had dismissed the idea of extraditing the drug lord to the United States, saying in January that he would only hand Guzmán over to American authorities after he served his sentences for multiple convictions in Mexico “in 300 or 400 years.”

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