Drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's lawyer says that his client "shouldn't be extradited to the United States or any other foreign country."
Juan Pablo Badillo says that is because "Mexico has laws grounded in the constitution. Our country must respect national sovereignty, the sovereignty of its institutions to impart justice."
Badillo earlier told the Milenio newspaper that the defense already has filed six motions to challenge extradition requests. He said several months ago that the extradition requests from the U.S. were the reason Guzman escaped.
Mexico is reportedly willing to extradite "El Chapo" in a sharp reversal from the official position after his last capture in 2014.
"Mexico is ready. There are plans to cooperate with the U.S.," said an official, who spoke on condition anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment.
But he cautioned that there could be a lengthy wait before U.S. prosecutors can get their hands on Guzmán, the most-wanted trafficker who was recaptured Friday after six months on the run: "You have to go through the judicial process, and the defense has its elements too."
Top officials in the party of President Enrique Peña Nieto also floated the idea of extradition, which they had flatly ruled out before Guzmán's embarrassing escape from Mexico's top maximum security prison on July 11 - his second from a Mexican prison.
"He has a lot of outstanding debts to pay in Mexico, but if it's necessary, he can pay them in other places," said Manlio Fabio Beltrones, president of Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Guzmán, a legendary figure in Mexico who went from a farmer's son to the world's top drug lord, was apprehended after a shootout between gunmen and Mexican marines at the home in Los Mochis, a seaside city in Guzmán's home state of Sinaloa. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. One marine was injured.
The operation resulted from six months of investigation by Mexican forces, who located Guzmán in a rural part of Durango state in October but decided not to shoot because he was with two women and a child, said Mexican Attorney General Arely Gómez.
Following his capture, the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel was brought to Mexico City's airport, frog-marched to a helicopter before news media, and flown back to the same prison he'd fled.
There were immediately calls for his quick extradition, just as there were after the February 2014 capture of Guzmán, who faces drug-trafficking charges in several U.S. states. At the time, Mexico's government insisted it could handle the man who had already broken out of one maximum-security prison, saying he must pay his debt to Mexican society first.
Then-Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in "300 or 400 years."
Then Guzmán escaped on July 11 under the noses of guards and prison officials at Mexico's most secure lock-up, slipping out an elaborate tunnel that showed the depth of the country's corruption while thoroughly embarrassing Pena Nieto's administration.
He also escaped a different maximum-security facility in 2001 while serving a 20-year sentence. Lore says he hid in a laundry cart, though many dispute that version. He spent 13 years on the lam.
Gómez said that one of Guzmán's key tunnel builders led officials to the neighborhood in Los Mochis, where authorities had been watching for a month. The team noticed a lot of activity at the house Wednesday and the arrival of a car early Thursday morning. Authorities were able to determine that Guzmán was inside the house, she said.
The marines were met with gunfire as they closed in.
Gómez said Guzmán and his security chief, "El Cholo" Iván Gastelum, were able to flee via storm drains and escape through a manhole cover to the street, where they commandeered getaway cars. Marines climbed into the drains in pursuit. They closed in on the two men based on reports of stolen vehicles and they were arrested on the highway.
What happens now is crucial for Guzmán, whose cartel smuggles multi-ton shipments of cocaine and marijuana as well as manufacturing and transporting methamphetamines and heroin, mostly to the U.S.
According to a statement from the Mexican Attorney General's office, the U.S. filed extradition requests June 25, while Guzmán was in custody, and another Sep. 3, after he escaped. The Mexican government determined they were valid within the extradition treaty and sent them to a panel of federal judges, who gave orders for detention on July 29 and September 8, after Guzmán had escaped.
Those orders were not for extradition but just for Guzmán to begin the extradition hearing process. Now that he is recapture, Mexico has to start processing the extradition requests anew, according to the law.
The attorney general's office noted that Guzmán's lawyers have already filed various appeals, some overruled and some still pending.