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Mexican drug lord's recapture marks start of extradition proceedings: authorities

Xinhua, January 10, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Attorney General's Office of Mexico indicated on Saturday that the recapture of the country's most notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman marks the start of proceedings for his extradition to the United States.

"With the recapture of Guzman, the respective extradition proceedings should begin," the Attorney General's Office said in a press release.

Guzman was apprehended in a raid in Los Mochis, a city in his home state of Sinaloa, on early Friday, six months after his embarrassing second prison break from a maximum security facility with inside help.

Guzman, known as "El Chapo" or Shorty, is believed to have control over as much as half of the illicit drugs delivered into the United States every year. He is wanted in the United States on a string of charges including drug trafficking.

The Attorney General's Office of Mexico said that the United States had filed two extradition requests with Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry on June 16 and Aug. 31, respectively, and that those petitions "were determined by the ministry to meet the requisites of the bilateral extradition treaty." The requests were then followed up with arrest warrants for purposes of extradition.

Guzman's legal team, however, have filed six injunctions against the extradition, his lawyer Juan Pablo Badillo told local media. He insisted that the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel "should be judged ... by Mexican judges and courts."

The Attorney General's Office said that "none of the injunctions impede the execution" of extradition.

Media reports have said that extraditing "El Chapo" to the United States will help boost confidence in the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

While Guzman had escaped from prison before, his prison break in July was a blow to Nieto as he had made taking the fight to the cartels one of the themes of his presidency. The government has recently been grappling high-profile cases of crime and corruption. Endi