Mexico has begun the process of extraditing drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States after the famed fugitive was recaptured following a dramatic, months-long hunt featuring movie stars, sewer escapes and bloody shootouts.
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Even though Penn is a well known actor and was travelling to Mexico on his own dime, there is little doubt he was engaged in a journalistic endeavour when he met one of the world’s most wanted men, said Mr George Freeman, director of the Media Law Resource Centre, a non-profit group in NY.
It turns out that authorities were watching.
Bullet holes riddle the walls of the second floor of the home that marines raided in their search for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in Los Mochis, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016.
The Mexican official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press that it was the Penn interview that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October.
Mexican authorities had said they captured Guzman partly because his representatives contacted filmmakers and actors about making his biopic.
“The recapture of “El Chapo” Guzman was something that the Mexican government had to do to avoid being involved with drug trafficking, so President Enrique Peña Nieto has nothing to celebrate, in fact he was never interested in capture El Chapo, during the first two years of his administration he walked free the streets of major cities in the country”, Hernandez told teleSUR. As rains started to fill the drains, Guzman eventually emerged from a manhole near a gas station a mile (1.5 km) across town and stole a auto at gunpoint. In it, Penn wrote of elaborate security precautions, but also said that as he flew to Mexico on Oct 2 for the meeting, “I see no spying eyes, but I assume they are there”.
The Marines moved from room to room, clearing the house.
In the interview with Penn published by Rolling Stone, Guzman said he felt neither remorse nor responsibility for smuggling billions of dollars worth of drugs into the United States. Mexican daily El Universal published photographs on Monday of Penn and Castillo that it said showed the pair being tracked at the time.
A judge granted Guzman a temporary injunction against extradition the day of his arrest and a court now has to rule on its validity.
Incredibly, just one member of the Mexican military force is injured, shown in the video screaming, “They got me, they got me”.
Marines found another hole beneath a refrigerator which proved to be a red herring, the apparent beginnings of a project to build another escape route.
The marines busted through two doors in the house to find 15 of Guzman’s gang armed with machine guns and rocket launchers.
The footage was shown on Mexican TV show Primero Noticias.
On Sunday, agents formally notified Guzman that he was wanted in the United States. Guzman’s attorney Juan Pablo Badillo has said the defense has already filed six motions to challenge extradition requests.
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Mexico regularly extradites leading traffickers but the government resisted handing over Guzman after his arrest in February 2014 as a point of national pride.
