A federal judge in Mexico on Monday stopped the extradition to the United States of veteran drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, arrested last Friday, so the request must be resolved in a trial, according to a resolution published on Monday.
Source: AFP
The magistrate made the decision by failing an amparo appeal filed by the defense of Caro Quintero -the drug lord most wanted by the anti-drug agency (DEA)- to prevent his immediate surrender to the US authorities.
In this way, the court of the state of Jalisco (west) accepted the request of the lawyers to follow the “corresponding extradition procedure in accordance with the Extradition Treaty between Mexico and the United States of America,” the sentence states.
“The suspension has the effect that (the extradition) is not carried out and the interested party remains in the place where he is available to the court of amparo,” the text adds, which implies that the so-called “Narco de Narcos” must remain in jail.
It is unknown how long the process will take to determine if the accused trafficker is sent to the United States.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had reported earlier that Caro Quintero’s defense was promoting legal resources to secure his release.
“Since Saturday, amparos have been filed and are being processed and the authorities are responding to judges, both the prosecution and the Secretary of the Navy,” said the president during his usual morning conference.
“We are going to take care that there is no corruption and any act contrary to the law,” he warned.
López Obrador recalled that Caro Quintero regained his freedom in 2013 through an amparo based on a legal technicality, after having served 28 of the 40 years in prison to which he was sentenced for the murder of US agent Enrique Camarena in 1985.
He also recalled that his government faced a similar situation when in May 2021 a court ordered the release of Héctor “El Güero” Palma, a former drug trafficker of the Sinaloa cartel, imprisoned since 1995. The prosecution managed to reverse the ruling and recapture him.
– Without US “interference” –
The government official explained that the resources presented by the defense of Caro Quintero allege “errors in the procedure” of arrest, after which 14 sailors who participated in the operation died when the helicopter that was transporting them collapsed.
Asked about the possible extradition, López Obrador limited himself to saying that “that will be decided by the competent authority.”
Meanwhile, he reiterated that the arrest of the “Narco de Narcos” was the work of the Mexican prosecutor’s office with the support of the Secretary of the Navy and that the DEA had no “direct interference.”
He also ruled out that this agency had alerted the Navy to the location of Caro Quintero and “much less” that its personnel had participated in the operation. “It’s not like before,” he said.
López Obrador also rejected press reports according to which the capture would have been achieved with information that the United States gave during his visit to Washington last week, or that there was pressure from that country to carry it out.
“They are not negotiations in the dark with anyone (…) We are an independent government,” he said.
Caro Quintero, 69 years old and one of the leaders of the extinct Guadalajara cartel, is accused of the torture and murder of DEA agent “Kiki” Camarena in 1985, for which the United States offered 20 million dollars for his capture. .
Accused by the DEA of having continued to traffic after his release in 2013, the capo was arrested on Friday in the town of Choix (state of Sinaloa, northwest) and held in the Altiplano prison (state of Mexico, center).
