Mexico considers treason charges for anyone who helped hand over drug lord

[RAY BOGAN]

You’d think they’d say thank you, but no. Prosecutors in Mexico are instead considering criminal charges for anyone who helped hand over the drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada to the United States. 

In July, the Justice Department arrested El Chapo’s son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, and Zambada after their plane landed at a small airport in New Mexico. They’re both leaders of the Sinaloa cartel. Guzman wanted to turn himself in, while Zambada says he was taken against his will. 

Now, the Mexican Attorney General’s office says it’s considering the following charges for Guzman and anyone else who helped turn over “El Mayo”: “illegal flight, illicit use of airports, immigration and customs violations, kidnapping, treason, and any other crimes that may apply.”

You may be wondering, how could handing over a drug lord be treasonous? Well in Mexico there’s an added meaning to their treason statute, it includes anyone who, “illegally abducts a person in Mexico in order to hand them over to authorities of another country.”

According to the AP, that clause was added after someone had the nerve to kidnap a doctor who was responsible for the torture and killing of a DEA agent in 1985, and hand him over the to the United States. 

The President of Mexico agrees with the decision to open a criminal investigation into Zambada’s arrest. 

[AMLO]

“(Zambada’s arrest) could have been an operation of the U.S. Department of Justice, and they must provide an explanation because we will find out anyway,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at a press conference. 

[RAY BOGAN]

President Obrador has previously said he opposes U.S. intervention in Mexico. He also said the arrest could be part of a plot to smear him. This is the same President who has a hugs not bullets policy for fighting drug cartels. 

[AMLO]

“Why don’t they change that policy in the United States? Why do they think that arresting one famous drug lord — or two, or three, or ten — is going to solve their (drug abuse) problem?” Obrador told reporters. 

[RAY BOGAN]

AMLO and the Mexican prosecutors are expressing their disapproval of the operation after Zambada’s lawyer released a letter the drug lord wrote from prison stating he was ambushed, kidnapped and taken to the United States against his will. 

Those are serious accusations coming from a man who had a $15 million bounty on his head and faces murder, kidnapping, and trafficking charges. 

Zambada has already made two court appearances in the United States, he’s scheduled to make a third on September 9. He’s being held without bond.