“Joaquin Guzman Lopez forcibly kidnapped my client,” Perez said in a statement. Perez added that the incident caused some back and leg problems for Zambada, who was in a wheelchair during his initial appearance in El Paso court on Friday.
Asked about Perez’s statement, Guzman Lopez’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said: “I have no further comment other than to say that Mr. Zambada is free to employ any defense he wishes against the charges he faces.”
Perez had said Friday that Zambada did not come to the United States voluntarily, but he did not use the word “kidnapped.”
In conversations over two days, multiple U.S. officials briefed on the operation made no mention of any alleged use of force by Guzmán López.
Representatives for the U.S. Justice Department and the Mexican presidency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier on Saturday, Reuters reported that Guzman Lopez — who planned to surrender to authorities — tricked Zambada into boarding a propeller plane by telling him they were going to look at real estate in northern Mexico, according to two U.S. officials and a former official.
Instead, the plane landed at a small municipal airport near El Paso, where federal agents arrested Zambada, who was in his 70s, and Guzmán López, who was about 38.
Zambada is one of the most important drug traffickers in Mexican history, but he and “El Chapo’s” sons have had a fractious relationship since their father was extradited in 2017 to the United States, where he is serving a life sentence in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.
Guzman Lopez is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in Chicago next week, where he faces drug trafficking and money laundering charges, while Zambada is due back in court on Thursday.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic and Raul Cortes Fernandez; editing by Noeleen Walder and William Mallard)
