According to the daily La Jornada, the organized crime division of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) “opened a preliminary probe to investigate the USA film actor and director Sean Penn and the actress Kate del Castillo…in relation to the crime of concealment, since they were aware that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was a fugitive from justice and nevertheless met with him without notifying Mexican authorities of the meeting”. Following his capture, the Sinaloa cartel kingpin was flown back to the Altiplano maximum-security prison, some 55 miles (90 kilometers) west of the capital, from which he had escaped in July.
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No detail has been given about the timeframe for extradition but experts say the process could take months.
Defense attorney Juan Pablo Badillo Soto wouldn’t say that Guzman’s escape from prison in July was legal, but “he was seeking freedom and “my obligation as professional is to demonstrate his innocence”.
The escape was a major embarrassment for the Mexican government, particularly as it was Guzman’s second successful prison break.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in Mexico City, Feb. 22, 2014. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested.
Asked if he feels responsible for the high level of addictions in the world, he said: “It’s false”.
However, according to ABC News, the Mexican government is conducting an investigation targeting Sean Penn and a Mexican actress for secretly meeting with and interviewing him for a Rolling Stone article.
Penn’s interview with Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, appeared late on Saturday on the website of Rolling Stone magazine.
Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron took aim at the Hollywood actor, by tweeting a link to an article that said real journalists who cover Mexican drug traffickers often end up dead.
That helped lead them days later to a ranch where Guzman was staying, one of the sources said.
Soto said that his first priority was to gain access to meet with Guzman, who he said he has not been permitted to see or speak with.
Despite Penn’s cloak-and-dagger efforts to keep the gathering secret, a Mexican federal official told AFP that authorities “had knowledge of this meeting” and that it helped lead to Friday’s recapture of the world’s most wanted man in his northwestern home state of Sinaloa. There were 30 to 35 guards, Penn wrote, and it was later learned there were around 100 more of Guzman’s soldiers in the general area. “We’ve had cases that take six years”.
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Chicago, which in 2013 dubbed Guzman its first Public Enemy No. 1 since Al Capone, has a sweeping 2009 indictment against him, including several counts of conspiring to smuggle and distribute drugs, as well as money laundering charges. They closed in on the two men based on reports of stolen vehicles and they were arrested on the highway.
