Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán has called for a new trial after the one in New York in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.
“The extradition to the Eastern District of New York was illegal. I was supposed to be extradited to the Eastern District of Texas and the Southern District of California. There has never been a waiver of the ‘specialty rule’ signed by a magistrate judge,” “El Chapo” wrote in the legal document requesting the review.
According to the ‘specialty rule’ cited by El Chapo Guzmán, “a person cannot be subjected to criminal proceedings, convicted or otherwise deprived of liberty for any pre-surrender crime other than that for which he was surrendered.”
Guzman, that is held in Colorado’s maximum security prison, he also stressed that his “legal assistance was ineffective” both during the trial and on appeal.
“My lawyers were not effective. They did not properly cross-examine the witnesses and as a result, I was found guilty. Nor did they fight to have some evidence excluded from the trial,” added the former Sinaloa Cartel boss. Today ‘El Chapo’ is represented by the Puerto Rican lawyer Mariel Colón Miro, the same one who also defended his wife, Emma Coronel. During what has been dubbed the ‘trial of the century’ in New York, his legal team was instead led by Jeffrey Lichtman, who now defends Joaquín and Ovidio Guzmán López, two of Chapo’s sons detained in Chicago, Illinois.
