MEXICO CITY — Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman won a temporary injunction to block his extradition to the United States where he faces narcotics and arms trafficking charges, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
Guzman, 56, who was Mexico's most wanted criminal and boss of the feared Sinaloa Cartel, was caught in the beach resort of Mazatlan with help from U.S. agents in a pre-dawn raid on Saturday.
The dramatic capture brought to a close his time as one of the world's most notorious organized crime bosses, and was a major victory for the Mexican government in a long, brutal war that has killed more than 80,000 people since 2007.
The day after Guzman's arrest, the spokesman for a U.S. federal prosecutor said he planned to seek the capo's extradition to face trial in the United States, but it is still unclear whether that will happen, and extradition proceedings can take years to complete.
On Monday, Guzman's lawyers filed an injunction to block any move to extradite him to the United States.
The injunction was approved on Tuesday but it remains unclear how long it will last, raising the possibility that the drug lord could remain in Mexico for a while.