Mexico considering extradition of drug lord to US

The Mexican government is mulling legal measures to fulfill a US request to extradite the newly-recaptured drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, as his attorneys vow to challenge the move.

"The federal government will study all the options within the legal framework and naturally these options include the extradition requests and the proceedings that he must also face in Mexico," an unidentified official told AFP on condition of anonymity on Saturday. "The law will decide what happens."

According reports, the office of Mexico’s attorney general will try to swiftly establish the path to El Chapo's extradition to the US by mid-2016.

The timing, however, will depend on legal injunctions file by the drug lord’s team of defense lawyers.

The boss of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel is wanted by American authorities over smuggling billions of dollars worth of illicit narcotics into the US as well as thousands of deaths due to his gang's violence.

One of the lawyers representing El Chapo, Juan Pablo Badillo, insisted on Saturday that the drug lord could not be extradited.

"In strict accordance with the constitution, he cannot nor should not be extradited to any foreign country," Badillo said in an interview with a local TV channel.

"Why? Because he is Mexican and Mexico has wise laws and a fair constitution, and there is absolute confidence in the prisons authority," he added.

The government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto had rebuffed US demands for El Chapo’s extradition prior to his second prison break in July.

Pena Nieto and other officials in the Central American state have yet to take a public stance on the potential extradition.

El Chapo shocked the world last summer when he stepped into the shower at his cell in the most secure wing of the maximum security Almoloya prison in full view of a video camera and vanished into what guards later discovered was a small hole in the shower’s floor, leading to a mile-long tunnel.

Guzman’s illicit narcotics activities across Mexico include smuggling tons of drugs into the US through boats, airplanes, submarines and vast networks of tunnels deep beneath the border.

His narcotic success has ranked him among the richest drug dealers in history; Forbes magazine has estimated his net worth at nearly $1 billion.

US authorities demanded Guzman's extradition following his recapture over fears that the wealthy drug baron would again bribe his way out of prison in neighboring Mexico.

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