(Mexico City) Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Wednesday that he would study the request for the repatriation of ex-drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who complains about his conditions of detention in the States -United.
“When it comes to human rights, there are international bodies,” said the Mexican president during his daily press conference. “You always have to keep the door open when it comes to human rights.”
Guzman, 65, said he suffered “psychological torment” in the super-high security prison in Florence in the deserted mountains of Colorado.
He is serving a life sentence there for drug trafficking, money laundering and the use of firearms.
His letter was forwarded by his lawyers to the Mexican Ambassador to the United States.
One of his lawyers, José Refugio Rodriguez, told AFP he wanted Guzman “to return to Mexico” to stand trial and serve his sentence in a local jail.
He mentioned the existence of “penitentiary conventions” between Mexico and the United States.
El Chapo’s grievances come after the arrest of one of his sons, Ovidio Guzman, on January 5 in the state of Sinaloa (northwest) during an operation that left 29 dead (10 soldiers and 19 suspected criminals according to the authorities).
Guzman, relentless leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped twice in 2001 and 2015 from Mexican prisons. Arrested again in Mexico in January 2016, he was extradited to the United States in 2017.
On July 18, 2019, he was found guilty of drug trafficking, money laundering and the use of firearms by a court in New York.
The cocaine trafficking trial of Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s security minister between 2006 and 2012, began in the same Brooklyn court on Tuesday.
Mr. Garcia Luna is accused of taking bribes to protect the Sinaloa Cartel from El Chapo.
The Mexican president described this trial as “very important” and wanted it to reveal whether the American authorities were aware of the links between Garcia Luna and the drug traffickers.