It looks like Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is not escaping his fate. It is being reported that the former drug cartel's appeal against extradition has been denied this week.
According to FOX News Latino, a federal judge ruled against five appeals from convicted drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in his legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States. However, the Mexican Attorney General's Office said Thursday that he can still appeal to higher courts.
National Security Commissioner Renato Sales said last week that Guzman could be extradited sometime in January or February. The dug cartel is wanted on drug trafficking and other charges in the United States.
The site reports that the office says that the judge denied two of Guzman's appeals and threw out the other three. Guzman's lawyer's did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
The leader of the Sinaloa Cartel has twice escaped from maximum-security prisons in Mexico. His most recent escape was in 2015 in which his Rolling Stone magazine interview led law enforcement officials to his location.He was recaptured in January and is currently imprisoned in the northern border state of Chihuahua.
The are currently two pending extradition requests for Guzman from federal courts in Texas and California, and there are a total of six cases against him across the United States.
His lawyers reportedly have 10 days to ask a higher court to review the decision and are expected to take the case all the way to Mexico's Supreme Court, said a federal official involved in the process who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
It is unclear if the recent murder of Judge Vicente Bermudez Zacarias had anything to do with the rulings on his appeals.
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