Mexico says drug lords sent to US over 'national security'

Mexico handed over 29 alleged drug lords to the United States for reasons of national security and outside the countries' extradition treaty, the attorney general said Friday.

The transfers were carried out in this way due to concerns that some judges were deliberately seeking to delay the handover, Alejandro Gertz told a news conference.

"This is a national security request that the United States justified based on the criminal conduct of those individuals in that country," he said.

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Gertz and Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch said the decision to use a national security law instead of the extradition treaty followed reports that some of the suspects could be freed by courts.

"There was a risk that some of these targets requested by the US government would be released or that their extradition processes would continue to be delayed due to agreements with some judges," Garcia Harfuch said.

The suspects handed over included Rafael Caro Quintero, who allegedly ordered the kidnap, torture and killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in the 1980s.

Caro Quintero was on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives until his capture in 2022.

He pleaded not guilty to narcotics charges in a New York court on Friday.

If convicted, Caro Quintero and several others could face the death penalty, the US Department of Justice said.

Mexico does not use the death penalty -- something that Gertz said the United States should respect.

The others delivered to the United States included the ex-leaders of the ultra-violent Zetas cartel, brothers Omar and Miguel Angel Trevino Morales.

Former Juarez cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and a brother of Nemesio Oseguera, who is the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful criminal organizations, were also on the list.

The surprise handover came as Mexico scrambles to seal a deal with Washington to avoid being hit with trade duties that Trump has linked to illegal migration and drug flows.