A lawyer caught Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman reported Wednesday an alleged political will to speed up the extradition of his client to the United States, and warned that "time (the trial) do not give" to the government to remove it from Mexico in a year.
"Undoubtedly policy in Mexico is above the law. I would be a fool or a fool if I said I did not care about that, that there is a complete separation of powers in this country. (That) is a lie, "lawyer Jose Refugio Rodriguez told reporters after visiting the Sinaloa cartel leader (west) at the maximum security prison Highlands, just outside Mexico City.
President Enrique Peña Nieto said in January during a trip to Davos (Switzerland) that "the indication (for the attorney general's office) is to accelerate their work to achieve the extradition as soon as possible."
For his part, Attorney General Arely Gomez went on to say that the process would take "one year" after a legal battle with the defense of the capo.
But Rodriguez counsel argued that "can not jump times or ways. As much as walks (the process), it is a lie that Peña Nieto can finish the extradition procedure within the time he says ".
The lawyer said he would appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to file an injunction to stop the extradition and to complain about alleged mistreatment Guzman receives in prison.
Meanwhile, US officials want the boss behind his bars serving a sentence, it has open processes in half a dozen US cities on charges from drug trafficking to murder and kidnapping.
However, Rodriguez said the two extradition requests in progress, one from southern California and other West Texas, have defects that could make them void.
"These first extradition requests bring a formal defect of origin", as they are signed by a person who is not the head of the mission or the interim, without warrant is signed by the director for administrative matters, he said.
Humiliated by the flight of Guzman a maximum security prison, the Mexican government recaptured the elusive capo on 8 January.
Authorities imprisoned in El Altiplano, the same prison from which he escaped in July 2015 through a kilometer tunnel dug at the foot of the shower of his cell.