Mexico Court Upholds US Extradition Of Drug Fugitive Wanted By FBI

Mexico City, May 4 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 4th May, 2021 ) :A Mexican judge has approved the extradition to the United States of a fugitive drug trafficker who is accused of killing a US Federal agent, judicial sources said Monday.

The ruling, which came from a Mexico City criminal court Friday, rejected an appeal from lawyers for Rafael Caro Quintero, who is on the FBI's 10 most wanted list with a $20 million bounty on his head over the murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent.

His lawyers argued that the crime had already been adjudicated in a Mexican court so he could not be tried for the same act in the United States.

But the court ruled that even in a "hypothetical scenario" in which Caro Quintero had been tried for certain crimes in Mexico, "it does not prevent him from eventually being extradited by those who are outside that court proceeding," according to an official document.

The court said this meant there was sufficient reason to issue an arrest warrant as requested by the United States, to which the defense also protested.

In April, a US judge authorized the seizure of five Mexican properties belonging to Caro Quintero, who co-founded the Guadalajara drug cartel and currently runs an arm of the infamous Sinaloa cartel, according to the DEA.

The United States accuses him of ordering the kidnap, torture and murder of DEA special agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in 1985.

Caro Quintero was arrested that year, tried in Mexico and sentenced to 40 years in prison, but in 2013, a judge released him on a legal technicality and he went into hiding.