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MEXICO CITY (AP) — The latest on Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman who was recaptured six months after he escaped from a maximum security prison: (all times local)
10:45 p.m.
U.S. actor Sean Penn writes in his article in Rolling Stone magazine that Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was interested in having a movie filmed about his life.
Penn purportedly met with Guzman in late 2015, before the drug lord's capture by security forces, at an undisclosed hideout in Mexico. The interview appeared late Saturday on the magazine's website.
Penn writes that Guzman wanted Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who facilitated the meeting between the men, involved in the project.
"He was interested in seeing the story of his life told on film, but would entrust its telling only to Kate," Penn wrote in the article.
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9:40 p.m.
A Mexican law enforcement official says recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's secret interview with actor Sean Penn helped authorities locate his whereabouts.
Guzman was arrested early Friday after a shootout in his home state of Sinaloa that killed five and injured one marine.
Mexico Attorney General Arely Gomez said Friday that Guzman's contact with actors and producers for a biopic helped gave law enforcement a new lead on tracking and capturing the world's most notorious drug kingpin.
The official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity, said it was the Penn interview that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October. They aborted their raid at the time because he was with two women and child. — Katherine Corcoran.
— Corrects that Sinaloa is his home state.
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9:30 p.m.
Rolling Stone magazine reports that the meeting between drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and U.S. actor Sean Penn was brokered by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo.
The magazine's website has a two-minute video it says is the first ever exclusive interview with Guzman. It is in Spanish and in it Guzman sits in front of a chain link face and speaks to a camera. He is wearing a print blue shirt and dark baseball cap, but his face is clearly visible. Accompanying the article is a picture of Penn shaking hands with Guzman.
In the interview, when asked about whether he is responsible for the high level of drug addiction in the world Guzman responds: "No, that is false, because the day I don't exist, it's not going to decrease in any way at all. Drug trafficking? That's false."
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8:40 p.m.
Rolling Stone magazine is reporting that Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman met with U.S. Sean Penn in his hideout in Mexico months before his recapture by Mexican marines in his home state of Sinaloa.
In an article published late Saturday in the magazine, and authored by Penn, the actor describes the complicated measures he took to meet the legendary drug lord. He discusses topics ranging from drug trafficking to Middle East politics with Guzman.
The article follows reports that Guzman had reached out to Hollywood about filming a biopic of his life.
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6:15 p.m.
A Mexican federal official says that the quickest recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman would be extradited to the United States is six months.
The official, who was not authorized to talk to the press and spoke on condition of anonymity, says even that is not likely because lawyers file appeals. He says the appeals are usually turned down, but that each one means a judge has to schedule a hearing.
"That can take weeks or months, and that delays the extradition," he says. "We've had cases that take six years."
The U.S. has sought Guzman's extradition and a Mexican law enforcement official says the country is prepared to do it. — Katherine Corcoran.
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5:40 p.m.
Argentine author and journalist Diego Fonseca says he was approached by a publishing house he can't name in 2012 and told that Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was looking for a biographer. He would be taken to an airport in a location to be revealed later.
"They would move me from place to place and I wouldn't carry a cellphone," Fonseca says. "He wanted to tell his story before he got turned in."
The messages came to the publishing house from various telephones and a doctor who was supposedly close to Guzman. After a while they stopped.
"They pulled back. All of sudden they were worried about the security of El Chapo," Fonseca says.
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5:25 p.m.
Mexico's attorney general says Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman wanted to make a biopic, and his lawyers' conversations with actors and producers helped lead authorities to his capture. But Malcolm Beith, author of "The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World's Most Wanted Drug Lord," says that doesn't sound like the Guzman he studied to write his 2010 book.
Beith says Guzman doesn't like the star aspect of being a top drug lord, unlike the late Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Guzman doesn't live an ostentatious life and prefers to go around in blue jeans and baseball cap.
"The narcissism there was more for power and control of the business," he says.
But Beith speculates that Guzman could want such a project for financial reasons, to leave money for his family since the Mexican and U.S. governments have seized so many of his properties in the last year in an effort to shut him down.
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4:45 p.m.
Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman'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.
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2:30 p.m.
A Mexican federal law enforcement official says the country is willing to extradite recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States. That's a sharp reversal from the government's position after his last capture in 2014.
The official says "Mexico is ready" for an extradition and "there are to cooperate with the U.S." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment.
He also cautioned that extradition might not come soon. Experts say the legal process could be lengthy and Guzman's attorney is saying he'll battle extradition in the courts.
Guzman was recaptured Friday, six months after breaking out of the country's top maximum security prison.
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