Mexico City: A Mexican judge suspended on Saturday a warrant for the arrest and US extradition of fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman while courts mull whether to quash the order. The judge granted the suspension after Guzman's lawyers filed a petition on Wednesday to throw out the extradition order issued by another court, judicial sources said.
A judge must now decide whether to throw out the arrest warrant, a judicial official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The extradition order was issued on Wednesday at the request of prosecutors, almost three weeks after the Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin broke out of a maximum-security prison on July 11.
President Enrique Pena Nieto's decision to try Guzman in Mexico instead of immediately extraditing him to the United States last year has come under scrutiny since his latest escape.
Guzman had already fooled the authorities in 2001 when he busted out of another maximum security penitentiary.
While US prosecutors indicated shortly after Guzman's February 2014 arrest that they wanted to try him, the US government formally requested the extradition on June 25, some two weeks before his escape.
