El Chapo trial: Mexican drug dealer Joaquín Guzmán imprisoned for life

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An American judge sentenced Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Mexican drug leader, to life imprisonment for more than 30 years.

Guzmán, 62, was convicted of 10 counts, including drug smuggling and money laundering, by a federal court in New York in February.

He escaped from a Mexican prison through a tunnel in 2015, but was later arrested. He was extradited to the United States in 2017.

He is a former Sinaloa cartel leader who, according to officials, was the largest drug provider in the United States.

During the trial, witnesses said that he had tortured the enemies of his cartel.

Speaking through the intermediary of an interpreter just before Wednesday's conviction, Guzmán told Brooklyn court that his imprisonment in the United States amounted to "psychological, emotional and mental torture inflicted upon him." 24 hours a day.

He also claimed to have benefited from an unfair trial, accusing jurors of misconduct.

The life sentence was the minimum that Guzmán was facing. The additional 30 years involved illicit uses of firearms.

He was also ordered to pay $ 12.6 billion (£ 10 billion) in forfeiture.

Prosecutors said Guzmán would serve his sentence behind "tons of steel," referring to a high-security prison in Colorado.

It was not clear right away if Guzmán would appeal the verdict.

Who is El Chapo?

"El Chapo" (or "Shorty") led the deal in northern Mexico.

In 2009, Guzmán entered the Forbes list of the world's richest men at number 701, with an estimated value of $ 1 billion.

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He was accused of helping to import hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States and to conspire to manufacture and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.

He also reportedly used killers to commit hundreds of murders, badaults, kidnappings and torture.

Key collaborators, including a former lieutenant, testified against Guzmán.

What was heard during the trial?

This has provided shocking revelations about the life of the drug lord.

Court documents accused him of drugging 13-year-old girls before raping them.

Guzmán "called the" youngest girls "his" vitamins "because he believed that badual activity with young girls gave him" life "", said Colombian drug dealer Alex Cifuentes , former collaborator.

Another witness said he saw Guzmán murder at least three men.

The former bodyguard, Isaias Valdez Rios, said that Guzmán had beaten two people who had joined a rival cartel until becoming "completely like rag dolls". He then shot them in the head and ordered their bodies thrown into the fire.

In another incident, a member of his rival Arellano Felix's cartel was set on fire and imprisoned before taking him to the cemetery, shooting him and burying him alive.

Guzmán also reportedly had his own cousin murdered for lying about his absence and allegedly ordered to hit the brother of another cartel leader because he would not have shaken her hand.

The court learned the details of his escape in 2015 from the maximum security prison of Altiplano in Mexico. His sons bought a property near the prison and a GPS watch smuggled into the prison told the diggers its exact location.

At one point, Guzmán complained that he could hear the digs of his cell. He escaped while driving a small motorcycle specially adapted in the tunnel.

He also used software on his phone to spy on his wife and mistresses, which allowed the FBI to present his text messages to the court.

In a series of texts, he told his wife how he had fled a villa during a raid organized by US and Mexican officials before asking him to bring him new clothes, shoes and a mustache dye. black.

Why was this essay significant?

Guzmán is currently the main person in charge of the Mexican drug cartel in the United States.

The Mexican drug war – opposing Mexican and American authorities to smuggling drug deals in the United States – has killed about 100,000 people in more than a decade.

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Guzmán has gained notoriety for being escaped twice in Mexico and avoiding being arrested on numerous occasions.

Among his compatriots, he had the status of folk hero, a popular subject of "narcocorridos" – musical tributes to drug lords.

In 2016, he had granted an interview to Hollywood actor Sean Penn in the Mexican jungle after his breakout the year before and had boasted of being the world 's leading supplier. heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.

It was later taken back in the city of Los Mochis, in the north-west of the country. During the raid, he escaped through a sewer, but was overtaken by soldiers during a shootout.

The US indictment against him consisted of a consolidation of charges from six federal jurisdictions across the country, including New York, Chicago and Miami.

Prosecutors have gathered evidence acquired over more than a decade, including from international partners such as Mexico and Colombia, to back up their case.

The trial jurors were anonymous and were escorted by armed marshals to and from the Brooklyn Courthouse after prosecutors claimed that Guzmán had always intimidated witnesses and even ordered their murder.