New York: Mexican drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, one of the world’s most notorious criminals, was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face charges on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Guzman heads the Sinaloa cartel, which is accused of generating much of the deadly violence in Mexico’s decades-long drug war and providing tons of narcotics to the United States.
The drug kingpin landed at MacArthur Airport on Long Island, the US Justice Department said. US television broadcast footage of what appeared to be his convoy arriving outside a New York jail, the street outside bristling with heavily armed US Marshalls.
His extradition caps a Hollywood-worthy cat-and-mouse game between Mexican authorities and the slippery 59-year-old drug lord, who escaped from prison twice.
His feats turned him into a legend of Mexico’s underworld, with musicians singing his praises in folk ballads known as “narcocorridos” — tributes to drug capos.
US prosecutors said Brooklyn federal attorney Robert Capers will hold a news conference at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) — less than two hours before Trump’s inauguration — to announce his extradition and arraignment.
Guzman is charged in six separate indictments throughout the United States, one of which is in New York.
The drug baron had fought desperately against extradition since being recaptured almost exactly a year ago in his home state of Sinaloa following his second daring jailbreak.
President Enrique Pena Nieto previously refused to extradite Guzman, but he changed tack after his latest escape in July 2015.
He had been held most recently in prison in Ciudad Juarez, which borders Texas, after being abruptly transferred from a penitentiary near Mexico City last May.
The Mexican foreign ministry said he was handed over to US authorities after the Supreme Court and a court of appeals rejected his latest bids to avoid extradition.
The appeals court ruled that the extradition conformed with a bilateral treaty and that Guzman’s rights had not been violated, the statement said.
The US Justice Department extended “its gratitude to the government of Mexico for their extensive cooperation and assistance.”
But one of Guzman’s lawyers, Silvia Delgado, told Milenio television that she was surprised by the extradition, calling it “illegal” because another legal petition was pending.
In May, the Mexican foreign ministry approved extradition bids from California, where he is wanted for drug distribution, and Texas, where he faces a slew of charges including murder and money laundering.
Trump, who takes office on Friday, has publicly clashed with Mexico over trade and immigration issues. The Republican president-elect has pledged to build a wall on the US-Mexican border.
Alejandro Hope, a prominent Mexican security expert, said the decision to extradite Guzman in the last hours of Barack Obama’s presidency and before Trump takes office was “not a coincidence.”
“They didn’t want Trump to be able to brag about it, so they managed to hand him over in the final minutes” of the Obama administration, he told AFP.
But Alejandro Almazan, author of Guzman biography “The Most Wanted,” said the kingpin was “a gift to Trump” because Pena Nieto wants good relations with the new US leader.
Alberto Elias Beltran, Mexico’s deputy attorney general for international affairs, denied that the timing was politically motivated.
He said the government does not intervene in judicial rulings, that the case was resolved on Thursday and that Guzman had to be delivered “immediately” under the terms of the international treaty.
Guzman was first captured in Guatemala in 1993, only to escape from a maximum-security prison in western Mexico in 2001 by hiding in a laundry cart.
Marines backed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration arrested him in February 2014 in the Sinaloa resort of Mazatlan, where he was staying with his wife and twin daughters.
But Guzman escaped from prison again in spectacular fashion just 17 months later.
His henchmen dug a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel that opened into his cell’s shower at the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, allowing him to slip out and flee on a remodeled motorbike that was fitted on tracks.
Guzman was recaptured in January 2016.
Authorities said they tracked him down after Guzman held a clandestine meeting with US actor Sean Penn and Mexican-American actress Kate del Castillo, with whom he exchanged flirtatious text messages.
His arrest likely leaves his long-time associate, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, at the helm of the Sinaloa cartel.
But Raul Benitez Manaut, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the extradition weakens the group.
“There will be an internal fight between his sons and the sons of other of the founders,” Benitez Manaut said. “It could be violent — or maybe it could be peaceful.”
Extradited Mexican drug lord ‘El Chapo’ arrives in US
Extradited Mexican drug lord ‘El Chapo’ arrives in US
Shrinking, aging population makes South Korea ‘super-aged society’
- Asia’s fourth-largest economy recorded just 0.7 births per woman late last year
- The government has poured billions of dollars into encouraging more births, with Seoul authorities offering subsidies for egg freezing in one recent effort
Seoul: South Korea has become a “super-aged society,” with 20 percent of its population aged 65 or older, official data showed on Tuesday, a gloomy trend driven by an alarmingly low birth rate.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy recorded just 0.7 births per woman late last year — one of the lowest birth rates in the world and far below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to sustain the current population.
That means South Korea’s population is aging and shrinking rapidly.
Those aged 65 and older “account for 20 percent of the 51.2 million registered population, numbering 10 million,” the interior ministry said in a news release on Tuesday, placing South Korea alongside Japan, Germany and France as a “super-aged society.”
It also means the elderly population has more than doubled since 2008, when it numbered fewer than five million, according to the ministry.
Men account for 44 percent of the current 65-and-older group, the data showed.
The government has poured billions of dollars into encouraging more births, with Seoul authorities offering subsidies for egg freezing in one recent effort.
However, such efforts have failed to deliver the intended results and the population is projected to fall to 39 million by 2067, when the median population age will be 62.
Experts say there are multiple causes for the twin phenomena of low marriage and birth rates, ranging from high child-rearing costs and soaring property prices to a notoriously competitive society that makes securing well-paid jobs difficult.
The double burden on working mothers, who shoulder the bulk of household chores and childcare while maintaining their careers, is another key factor, they say.
German president urges unity after ‘dark shadow’ of Christmas market attack
- Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong”
BERLIN: Germany’s president said Tuesday that a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market had cast a “dark shadow” over this year’s celebrations but urged the nation not to be driven apart by extremists.
In his traditional Christmas address, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to issue a message of healing four days after the brutal attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed five people and left over 200 wounded.
“A dark shadow hangs over this Christmas,” said the head of state, pointing to the “pain, horror and bewilderment over what happened in Magdeburg just a few days before Christmas.”
He made a call for national unity as a debate about security and immigration is flaring again: “Hatred and violence must not have the final word. Let’s not allow ourselves to be driven apart. Let’s stand together.”
His words came a day after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) held what it called a memorial rally for the victims in Magdeburg, where one speaker demanded that Germany “must close the borders.”
Nearby an anti-extremist initiative was held under the motto “Don’t Give Hate a Chance.”
Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong.”
A Saudi doctor, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was arrested Friday at the scene of the attack in which a rented SUV plowed at high speed through the crowd of revellers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event.
His motive still remains unclear, days after Germany’s deadliest attack in years.
Abdulmohsen has in his many online posts voiced strongly anti-Islam views, anger at German authorities and support for far-right conspiracy narratives on the “Islamization” of Europe.
News outlet Der Spiegel reported he wrote on social media platform X in May that he expected to die “this year” and was seeking “justice” at any cost.
Investigators found his will in the BMW that he used in the attack, the outlet said — he stated that everything he owned was to go to the German Red Cross, and it contained no political messages.
Die Welt daily, citing unnamed security sources, said that Abdulmohsen had been treated for a mental illness in the past, thought this was not immediately confirmed by authorities.
The attack has fueled an already bitter debate on migration and security in Germany, two months before national elections and with the far-right AfD party riding high in opinion polls.
The government is facing mounting questions about possible errors and missed warnings about Abdulmohsen, who was arrested next to the battered BMW sports utility vehicle.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about its citizen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had sought his extradition.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has pledged to fully investigate whether there were security lapses before the attack.
The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
German Christmas markets have been specially secured since a jihadist attacker rammed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 people.
The Magdeburg event too had been shielded by barricades, but the attacker managed to exploit a five-meter gap when he steered the car into the site and then raced into the unsuspecting crowd.
Steinmeier offered his condolences for relatives of those injured and killed “in such a terrible way” — when the attack killed a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 45 to 75.
“You are not alone in your pain,” he told the hundreds of affected families. “The people throughout our country feel for you and mourn with you.”
Legendary drug lord Fabio Ochoa is deported to Colombia after spending two decades in US prisons
- Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade
BOGOTÁ, Colombia: One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cartel has been deported back to the South American country, after serving 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in the United States.
Fabio Ochoa arrived in Bogota’s El Dorado airport on a deportation flight on Monday, wearing a grey sweatshirt and carrying his personal belongings in a plastic bag.
After stepping out of the plane, the former cartel boss was met by immigration officials in bullet proof vests. There were no police on site to detain him — an indication he may not have any pending cases in Colombian courts.
In a brief statement, Colombia’s national immigration agency said Ochoa should be able to enter Colombia “without any problems,” once he is cleared by immigration officers who will check for any outstanding cases against the former drug trafficker.
Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to US authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires.
Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar. Escobar died in a shootout with authorities in Medellin in 1993.
Ochoa was first indicted in the US for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Barry Seal, an American pilot who flew cocaine flights for the Medellin cartel, but became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Along with his two older brothers, Juan David and Jorge Luis, Ochoa turned himself in to Colombian authorities in the early 1990s under a deal in which they avoided being extradited to the US
The three brothers were released from prison in 1996, but Ochoa was arrested again three years later for drug trafficking and was extradited to the US in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy.
He was the only suspect in that group who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and a 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.
Ochoa’s name has faded from popular memory as Mexican drug traffickers take center stage in the global drug trade.
But the former member of the Medellin cartel was recently depicted in the Netflix series Griselda, where he first fights the plucky businesswoman Griselda Blanco for control of Miami’s cocaine market, and then makes an alliance with the drug trafficker, played by Sofia Vergara.
Ochoa is also depicted in the Netflix series Narcos, as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family that is into ranching and horse breeding and cuts a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.
Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant US attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug proceeds and he expects that the former mafia boss will have a welcome return home.
“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie told The Associated Press earlier this month.
Bill Clinton is hospitalized with a fever but in good spirits, spokesperson says
- “He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said
WASHINGTON: Former President Bill Clinton was admitted Monday to Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington after developing a fever.
The 78-year-old was admitted in the “afternoon for testing and observation,” Angel Urena, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
“He remains in good spirits and deeply appreciates the excellent care he is receiving,” Urena said.
Clinton, a Democrat who served two terms as president from January 1993 until January 2001, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer and campaigned ahead of November’s election for the unsuccessful White House bid of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Greek lawyers call for further investigation into 2023 deadly shipwreck
- “The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them
ATHENS: Greek lawyers representing the survivors and victims of a deadly 2023 shipwreck said on Monday a naval court needed to examine more evidence after a preliminary investigation failed to shed light on the case.
Hundreds died on June 14, 2023, when an overcrowded fishing trawler, monitored by the Greek coast guard for several hours, capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos.
A local naval court, which opened a criminal investigation last year, has concluded a preliminary investigation and referred the case to a chief prosecutor, the lawyers said on Monday, adding they had reviewed the evidence examined by the court so far.
“The case file contains serious gaps and omissions,” they said in a statement, adding that the captain and the crew of the coast guard vessel monitoring the migrant ship had been summoned by the court, but not the coast guard officials supervising them.
Evidence, including the record of communications between the officials involved in the operation, was not included in the case file, they added.
“The absence of any investigation into the responsibilities of the competent search and rescue bodies and the leadership of the Greek coast guard is deafening,” they said.
The chief prosecutor will decide if and how the probe will progress.
Under Greek law, prosecutors are not allowed to comment on ongoing investigations.
The vessel, which had set off from Libya, was carrying up to 700 Pakistani, Syrian and Egyptian migrants bound for Italy. Only 104 people were rescued and 82 bodies found.
Greece’s coast guard has denied any role in the sinking, which was one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Mediterranean Sea.
