The US dismisses the appeal to annul the trial of “El Chapo” Guzmán, he remains in prison for life

A New York Court of Appeals dismissed on Tuesday the request to annul the trial who sentenced Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in July 2019 to life in prison for drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms trafficking, among other charges.

Before the appeal filed by the defense of the Chapo to vacate his 2019 trial at the Brooklyn Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit, the ruling concludes that the process carried out by Judge Brian Cogan over three months was “diligent and fair”.

“For these reasons, the resulting ruling is affirmed,” Judge Jon O. Newman’s brief reads.

Throughout 44 pages, the judge refutes each of the 10 claims presented by the defense to request the annulment of the trial and concludes that none of them has “foundations”.

The defense based its request to claim the annulment of the trial, among others, on the fact that according to international law he should only have been tried for one of the charges described in the extradition treaty and for the accusation to which he was subjected in the proceedings for his extradition.

It also alleged that one of the jurors told a digital media outlet that he and others learned about the case in the press and on social networks during the process, something that was prohibited.

Guilty of 10 felonies

He also argued that Chapo’s total isolation since his extradition to the United States in January 2017 prevented him from collaborating in his defense before and during the trial, in addition to a “conflict of interest” of one of his lawyers and that the court of district and the government would have undermined his right to defense.

In July 2019, El Chapo was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in jail. after being found guilty of the 10 crimes of drug trafficking, money laundering and use of firearms, among others, of which he was accused. The justice sentenced him to five life sentences for drug trafficking and 30 years for firearms, as well as to pay 12,000 million dollars in compensation.

The US government accuses the former head of the Sinaloa cartel of introducing into the United States over a quarter of a century 1.44 tons of cocaine paste, 222 kg of heroin, almost 50 tons of marijuana and “quantities” of methamphetamine.

“There was no justice here,” El Chapo said in Spanish., 64 years old, Judge Cogan when he heard the sentence that sentenced him to spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison in the United States.

During the trial, the prosecution presented evidence that Chapo ordered the death or tortured and killed at least 26 people or groups of people, including alleged informants, rival drug traffickers, police officers, associates and even family members.

The prosecution then presented overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt and summoned 56 witnesses to the trial, including 14 former partners, friends and even a lover of Chapo who ran away with him naked running through a tunnel.

Investigated in Mexico

But his problems with the law are not over. In Mexico, the once powerful drug lord capable of bribing half the world, and the former Minister of Security Genaro García Luna, also detained in a New York prison awaiting trial, are being investigated by a United States operation to introduce weapons to its neighboring country, announced the prosecutor’s office on January 9.

Through this operation, between 2006 and 2011, the United States would have illegally introduced more than 2,000 weapons to Mexico in order to track whether they reached the hands of criminal groups and their leaders and thus achieve their capture.

However, the Mexican prosecutor’s office does not detail how the defendants were able to participate in this operation that has sparked angry claims from the Mexican government and which the Attorney General’s office calls “absolutely illegal and inadmissible.” Although he did say that these “weapons were not only illegally introduced into the country, but have also been used in various criminal acts” in Mexico.

For her part, Chapo’s wife, Emma Coronel, was sentenced in November last year in the United States to three years in prison for her participation in the powerful Sinaloa cartel led by her husband. (I)