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"El Chapo" after his arrest in Mexico City in 2016
Photo: Henry Romero / REUTERS
Former Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán has appealed against his life sentence.
According to the document that "El Chapo's" lawyer submitted to a New York court on Friday evening and that is available to the dpa news agency, the US authorities have "blindly exaggerated" the prosecution.
"El Chapo", leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for 25 years, is currently in a maximum security prison in the mountainous desert of the US state of Colorado.
"El Chapos" defense attorney Marc Fernich now argues, among other things, that "extraordinary and unprecedented" security measures prevented a fair trial.
Since "El Chapo" had already spent two and a half years in solitary confinement before the guilty verdict at the beginning of 2019, it was hardly possible for him to work with the defense.
In addition, the lawyer of the 63-year-old Mexican accuses the judiciary in the United States of ignoring reports that several jury members followed her case in the media during the negotiations - which the judge had banned in order to rule out influence.
"We are very optimistic that something positive will result from this," said Guzmán's lawyer Mariel Colon Miro of the AFP news agency.
She hopes that the judgment will be overturned as there were procedural errors.
The Mexican authorities extradited the former drug lord to the United States in 2017, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 30 years for drug trafficking, money laundering and other offenses in July 2019.
The jury found "El Chapo" guilty of all ten charges in one of the largest drug trials in American history - including involvement in a criminal organization, manufacture and international distribution of cocaine and heroin, as well as money laundering and the use of firearms.
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kfr / dpa / AFP