Last year, Guzman had broken out of prison and was on the run when he had a secret meeting with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn.
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Mexican drug boss Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman has been moved from a jail in central Mexico to a prison in Ciudad Juarez, a northern city located on the US border, but the move was not a prelude to extradition, authorities said on Saturday.
Under his new prison regime, guards wake Guzman up every two hours, creating an “unbearable” situation that makes him feel as if he were being “tortured”, Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman’s lawyers, told Radio Formula in February.
“I don’t know what the strategy is”, Refugio told The Associated Press.
Officially, Murillo Karam said Guzman would not be extradited until he finished serving his time in Mexico, a sentiment echoed by the ambassador to the United States, Eduardo Medina-Mora.
But Alejandro Hope also says officials may have feared the possibility of another jailbreak.
Chapo, or “Shorty”, faces charges ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder in cities that include Chicago, Miami and both Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York.
Considered one of the world’s most powerful drug bosses, Guzman has twice escaped from maximum-security prisons.
The Mexican justice department said the transfer was due to renovations at the Altiplano prison where he was being held, and not because Guzman’s extradition to the United States is imminent.
Altiplano is the same prison near Mexico City from which the drug lord escaped last July and to which he was returned after his January 8 recapture in the coastal city of Los Mochis in Sinaloa state.
It’s not immediately clear when Guzman will be turned over to USA custody.
“El Chapo” first broke out of a Mexican prison in 2001.
Mexican marines re-arrested him in the western state of Sinaloa in January, after he fled a safe house through a storm drain.
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Mexico’s government attributed Guzman’s transfer to renovations meant to improve security at Altiplano. Guzman was placed under constant observation from a ceiling camera with no blind spots, and the floors of top-security cells were reinforced with metal bars and a 16-inch (40-centimeter) layer of concrete.
