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A US court has rejected an appeal from Joaquin Guzman, also known as “El Chapo”, to determine whether his imprisonment is unlawful.

Guzman, 66, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful in the world, was convicted in 2019 on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offences.

He’s currently serving both a life prison sentence and a 30-year sentence consecutively at a Colorado prison that has been dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”. Prisoners there are kept in solitary confinement as much as 23 hours per day.

The decision to reject habeas corpus petitions filed by Guzman was handed down by Judge Brian Cogan from the Eastern District of New York this week.

“This was perhaps the most notorious criminal prosecution of the decade, and the charges of which petitioner was convicted could well have resulted in the death penalty but for the terms of his extradition,” the judge wrote while denying Guzman’s petition, in addition to a request for legal representation.

Judge Cogan, who presided over the former drug lord’s trial, rejected the request for counsel, stating that Guzman was being provided legal guidance by Mariel Colon Miro, who had represented both him and his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro.

In the ruling, the judge rejected arguments that attorneys for Mr Guzman did not sufficiently explore a plea bargain and cited sealed evidence suggesting that Guzman retains control of billions of dollars in assets, despite them not being in his own name.

His four sons currently run a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. One of them has been extradited to the US to face criminal prosecution.

Coronel Aispuro was released from prison in September. She was sentenced to three years in prison in 2021 for charges related to drug smuggling and helping her husband escape prison. She pleaded guilty to the charges.

Mr Guzman previously escaped from maximum-security prisons in Mexico, the outlet reported.

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