A Mexican judicial council ruled Monday that drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán can be extradited from Mexico to the United States to face trafficking charges.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday that she expected an "imminent resolution" to the extradition of Guzman to the the U.S. But she said that the actual process of resulting in his transfer had not begun by Monday afternoon.
If the foreign ministry approves the extradition, Guzmán could be extradited in about a month. However, the Mexican publication Diario El Universal reports that Guzmán's lawyers could delay the process for a year with appeals.
Guzmán's lawyer told Reuters news service that several appeals remain pending and that any effort to send him to the U.S. now would violate his human rights. Guzmán’s wife and legal team have said El Chapo has faced threats in prison and his life could be in danger.
The ruling came two days after Mexican authorities moved Guzmán, who twice made daring escapes from Mexican prisons, from Altiplano federal maximum-security prison near Mexico City to a facility in Cuidad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.
Mexican government officials had said the transfer was because of security upgrades being made at the prison where he was previously held and not a step toward extradition. A government statement said more than 7,400 inmates across Mexico have been rotated from federal prison as part of a security strategy implemented since September.
Guzmán made world headlines in July with a dramatic, complex escape from Altiplano prison. A massive international manhunt wrapped up in January with his arrest following a deadly shootout in Los Mochis, a Mexican coastal city of 250,000 in Guzmán's home state of Sinaloa.
Attorney General Arely Gómez González said Guzman wanted to make a biopic and reached out to actors and producers. That tipped off investigators to his location. Gómez said a journey to the rugged Sierra Madre mountains by American actor Sean Penn and a fellow actor was “essential” to tipping them off to the drug lord’s whereabouts.
El Chapo — "Shorty" for his small stature of 5-foot-6 — has been an iconic figure in the drug trade for decades. He was first captured in Guatemala in 1993 and was extradited to Mexico. Guzman was serving a 20-year sentence on drug-trafficking charges in a different prison when he pulled off an equally intricate escape in 2001. He was recaptured at a Mexican beach resort in February 2014.
That apparently did not loosen his grip on the cartel. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says he was able to communicate with his son and other cartel leaders through lawyers and others who visited him at Altiplano.
Contributing: Kevin Johnson
