Hector Luis 'El Guero' Palma Salazar, Who Founded Sinaloa Cartel With El Chapo, Could Soon Be a Free Man

Hector Luis "El Guero" Palma Salazar, who founded the Sinaloa Cartel with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, could soon be a free man.

According to Daily Star, a judge in Mexico ruled that El Guero Palma's rights have been violated since he was in jail waiting for witnesses to be found, but authorities have stopped looking for them.

Judge Ricardo Delgado Quiroz, head of the Third Unitary Court of the Third Circuit, has overturned a previous court ruling that had left El Guero Palma behind bars indefinitely.

In April, a lower court ordered the release of the Sinaloa Cartel boss. But weeks later, a judge ordered El Guero Palma to be held for 40 more days in non-prison custody pending investigation on drug and organized crime charges.

Last July, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) put the Sinaloa Cartel founder in Altiplano federal prison in Mexico state after a federal court revoked his acquittal.

The court has ordered El Guero Palma's re-arrest and reinstated the process so the FGR could look for the two protected witnesses, who have remained untraceable for six years, Milenio reported.

Both witnesses accused the Sinaloa Cartel founder of being behind a shipment of 3,288 kilos of cocaine that was seized in July 1999 in Tecoman, Colima, and a small plane with US$12 million in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora in October 1995.

They also accused him of being behind the murder of Antonio Contreras, deputy director of the Judicial Police of Nayarit, and his bodyguard Jose Cruz Guerrero, in May 1995.

In his ruling, Delgado Quiroz pointed out that the search for the two witnesses had come to an end in 2017 and 2018 since it was not possible to carry them out.

The judge noted that the Federal Public Ministry was informed about it, and it never resorted to challenging the agreements or filing for an appeal.

If this circumstance were to continue, the process against El Chapo's pal would make him languish in jail indefinitely, without justification and violating one's "fundamental right of access to the expeditious jurisdiction."

Delgado Quiroz then ordered the court that ordered the reinstatement of proceedings against El Guero Palma to issue a new ruling soon to "shed light on the defendant's permanence in prison," Borderland Beat reported.

Sinaloa Cartel Founder Hector Luis 'El Guero' Palma Salazar's Arrest and Appeal

Hector Luis "El Guero" Palma Salazar was one of the founders of the Sinaloa Cartel, maneuvering the drug cartel's operation with now-imprisoned El Chapo.

He was arrested in Mexico in 1995 and served 12 years in Mexico on bribery and weapons charges before he was extradited to the U.S. in 2007.

The Sinaloa cartel founder served nine years of a 16-year sentence in the U.S. for cocaine trafficking before being sent back to Mexico, where his trial on the charges he was acquitted of was held.

When he was re-apprehended, El Guero Palma has asked to have his re-apprehension declared illegal since the process was full of irregularities.

However, a court has junked his appeal in November, saying his re-apprehension was legal and "the responsible authorities acted in accordance with the law."

Tragic Life of Sinaloa Cartel Boss' Hector Luis 'El Guero' Palma Salazar

The Sinaloa Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel had a violent rivalry in the early 1990s, marking Mexico's first major narco war, El Pais reported.

When Tijuana Cartel boss Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was arrested, his nephews, the Arellano Felix brothers, led the cartel. Sinaloa Cartel was then led by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.

The battle between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel intensified after El Chapo and El Guero Palma tried to kill Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix at a nightclub in Puerto Vallarta. But the botched attempt hit and killed six others instead.

The violence had spilled over into the lives of the cartel families when the Arellano Felix brothers ordered a hitman to seduce El Guero Palma's wife.

The hitman has successfully completed his mission by killing El Guero Palma's wife. He then sent her head to him in a refrigerated box.

The Sinaloa Cartel boss had also received a videotaped showing the death of his two children, being thrown off in a 150-meter high bridge in Venezuela.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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