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Roundup: Mexico approves extradition of drug lord to U.S.

Xinhua, May 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will be extradited to the United States, the Foreign Ministry announced Friday, while Guzman's lawyers said they will appeal the decision.

The ministry said it has notified Guzman, who has been moved to a prison close to the U.S. border, that it had approved an extradition request of a federal district court in Texas in the United States.

Guzman was charged with "the crimes of criminal conspiracy, crimes against public health, organized crime, possession of arms, homicide and money laundering," according to the ministry.

Guzman has 30 days to appeal the decision, the ministry said. Meanwhile, the United States gave assurances that Guzman would not face the death penalty, a punishment that Mexico is against, it added.

One of Guzman's lawyers said they will appeal the decision all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Guzman should serve his sentence in Mexico, Jose Refugio Rodriguez told Milenio TV.

Another member of Guzman's legal team, Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, dismissed the Foreign Ministry's assurance that their client would not be sentenced to death.

"Such a guarantee does not exist, since each state in that neighboring country to the north is autonomous and has its own laws, and in those exact districts where he is wanted they apply the death penalty," said Gonzalez.

In the small hours of May 7, Guzman was suddenly moved under heavy guard from a maximum security prison in central Mexico to a similar facility in Ciudad Juarez, a town on the border with the U.S. state of Texas.

The Interior Ministry had denied a link between the transfer and a possible extradition.

With Guzman in U.S. custody, Mexican officials would no longer have to worry about another embarrassing prison escape by the drug lord.

Guzman first broke out of a maximum security prison in 2001. He was recaptured in 2014, but managed to escape again in 2015 through a tunnel from his cell to a safe house more than a kilometer away. He was recaptured in January 2016. Endi