Mexico president defends release of drug lord El Chapo’s son amid criticism
- Lopez Obrador defended the decision to free Guzman, saying ‘catching a criminal cannot be worth more than people’s lives’
- Soldiers briefly arrested Ovidio Guzman but released him after being overpowered by cartel gunmen
Admitting his forces carried out a “badly planned” operation, Defence Minister Luis Sandoval said soldiers briefly arrested Ovidio Guzman – one of several sons, who have taken control of the Sinaloa cartel since their father was extradited to the United States in 2017 – but released him after being overpowered by cartel gunmen.
“It was a badly planned strategy,” Sandoval told a news conference in Culiacan, the western city that was turned into an urban war zone on Thursday.
“The task force acted too hastily. (The operation) wasn’t improvised, there was planning, but … it takes time to obtain an arrest warrant. When the operation was already under way, they decided to improvise and try to obtain a positive result,” he said, after flying into the city – the state capital of Sinaloa, the Guzmans’ bastion – for an emergency security cabinet meeting.
He added that Guzman, 28, was never “formally detained.”
Heavily armed cartel gunmen surrounded the house, where Guzman was being held on Thursday afternoon and launched a massive machine-gun assault on various parts of the city, sending terrified residents fleeing for safety and leaving the streets strewn with blazing vehicles.
