Photo: OMAR TORRES / AFP / Getty Images
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the worldhas launched a request for help to the president of Mexico.
One of “El Chapo’s” lawyers, José Refugio Rodríguez, explained that his client told him about the conditions in which he lives in prison. the maximum security prisonADX Florence of the state of Colorado, in the western United States, for transmission to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
And he has instructed him to meet with the Mexican president to review the possibility of his return to a Mexican prison.
“His situation is one of psychological torture, because he is segregated in his cell,” Rodríguez explained to the Mexican radio station Radio Fórmula.
“And he hurts this offense, this violation of his human rights (…) He asks me to fight for his return to Mexico.”
For the Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, there are no possibilities that Guzmán is repatriated while serving a sentence in the US.
President López Obrador confirmed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responding to Joaquín ‘Chapo’ Guzmán’s request to return to a prison in Mexico.
“Yes, we will review it,” he said.
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— Joaquín López-Dóriga (@lopezdoriga) January 18, 2023
But Lopez Obrador said that the request must be analyzed: “When it comes to human rights, there are ways and there are international instances. So it’s not to be ruled out. Because the main human right is the right to life, so any person must be guaranteed that right,” said the Mexican president on Wednesday.
“There is nothing more to see if it proceeds or not.”
Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in the US on drug charges.
“El Chapo” was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent organizations in Mexico to which they are attributed tens of thousands of homicides in the country in the last two decades
“In 6 years I have not seen the sun”
Lawyer Rodríguez, Guzmán’s representative in Mexico and who is not part of the drug defense in the US, explained that he received his client’s testimony at the end of last year.
“He tells me that in the 6 years that he has been in the United States he has not seen the sun“He explained in an interview with Radio Formula.
“From April to date [noviembre de 2022] I have been taken out to a playpen that measures 2m wide by 2.5m long, once a week. Maximum three times a week for two hours. But the sun doesn’t hit him,” Guzmán told him.
Rodríguez also pointed out that his client assured him that “He was sick with some teeth and instead of curing them, they took them out so he wouldn’t be bothering them.”
They have only allowed him to make six calls, to communicate with his lawyer, his daughters, his sister and his mother. And they’ve only allowed him three visitors.
He also complains that “the food is of poor quality” and that they do not allow you to communicate with other inmates or speak in Spanishthe only language he knows.
“She has a television, but since she doesn’t speak English, she says she only has access to two channels in Spanish,” explains Rodríguez.
Request your return to Mexico
The instruction that Guzmán gave his lawyer is to seek an interview with President López Obrador to ask him to review the conditions under which he was extradited to the US and the possibility of him serving his sentence in Mexico.
Rodríguez says he sent an email to the Mexican Embassy in Washington to “That the government of Mexico knew his feelings, knew that they have abandoned him.”
“Yor I see it as an SOS, of someone who walks in the sea and sees a piece of wood to hold on to. For the desperation he feels in the United States and because he hurts from a trial in which there was no due process… Even though he has been sentenced, he continues to have dignity and human rights,” said Rodríguez.
The embassy reported on Tuesday that it received the email on January 10: “No letter was received from Mr. Loera. The mail was turned over to the Foreign Ministry, as it is a matter within its competence.
When questioned by the press, Foreign Minister Ebrard said that it is very difficult for Guzmán to be granted the request to be repatriated, since he must serve his sentence in the United States.. President López Obrador said that the answer must be argued.
For the lawyer Rodríguez, the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) violated the defense rights of his client by extraditing him to the US in an expeditious manner, committing “violations of his human rights.”
“Legally, the treaty [de extradición de México y EE.UU.] allows us his return, because in Mexico he has pending criminal proceedings, ”argues Rodríguez.
The dangerousness of the presence of “El Chapo” in Mexican prisons was evident After that drainra successfully on two occasions (2001 and 2014) from maximum security prisons.
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