Extraditions at record pace

In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times Ken Ellingwood writes about the “record” number of extraditions of drug suspects and other wanted criminal suspects from Mexico to the US.

Ellingwood writes,

The government of President Felipe Calderon is extraditing drug suspects and other fugitives to the United States at a record pace, reflecting a quiet but seismic shift in Mexican policy that many analysts say could help dismantle trafficking gangs.

Calderon’s administration has handed over more than 150 criminal suspects since coming to power in December 2006.

The extradition rate is double what it was before Calderon took office. And it represents a radical policy change from a decade ago, when Mexico, sensitive about its sovereignty, rarely handed suspects over for prosecution in the United States.

I’d heard something similar about a month ago, and checked in with different sources. I was pointed to a web site for the US Embassy in Mexico City that details the breakdown of extraditions. As of August 2008, about 48 percent of the extraditions involve drugs, while 33 percent are for murder. Overall, more than half the extraditions are for offenses other than drug trafficking, including murder, sexual crimes against children, rape and kidnapping. Most of the fugitives returned are Mexican nationals.

These figures are up from 40 percent of extraditions involved drug trafficking while down from 37 percent involving murder from figures that appear to be about a year old.

See: http://mexico.usembassy.gov/eng/eataglance_law.html

The overall numbers are certainly up — Mexico extradited only four people in 1995, for instance, compared with 83 people last year and about 70 this year, as Ellingwood reports (the latest figures I have from August are at 57 for the calendar year). A telling number, however, is that 51 extradition cases remain before Mexican judges (at least two involve the Villarreal brothers, as mentioned previously here.)

What I don’t know is if the actual rate of extraditions has increased, as Ellingwood reports. Are the number of extradition requests increasing as well? Or are the requests static and the number of approved extraditions increasing?

Anyway, there has been a trend upward in extraditions going back to 2000. As this State Department press release points out, 2003 saw a record, too. The fact is, we’ve heard about new records before:

NEW RECORD IN EXTRADITIONS FROM MEXICO TO THE U.S.A.

Ambassador Garza salutes increased bilateral effort to bring criminals to justice

Mexico City
October 16, 2003

With two accused drug traffickers and one person charged with money laundering extradited from Mexico to the United States today, the total number of extraditions rose to 28 so far this year – exceeding the record of 25 in all of 2002.

“The cooperation between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials means that more of those who should be tried for their crimes are going to face justice,” U. S. Ambassador Antonio O. Garza, Jr. said Monday. “The number of extraditions in the last two years represents a major change; we still have a long way to go to ensure justice can be done on both sides of the border but Mexicans and Americans are showing their commitment to this goal.”

The Ambassador expressed his gratitude for the cooperation from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and the Secretariat of Foreign Relations in facilitating the arrest and extradition of the 28 accused criminals. He noted that, from 1995-2000, the average number of extraditions per year was 11, and to date more than twice this number have been extradited in 2003.

“All crimes for which we seek extradition are serious – murder, attempted murder, rape, kidnapping, narcotics, sexual assault of children, money laundering and major fraud,” the Ambassador said. “Mexicans and Americans want to see those responsible behind bars.”

Since the Mexican Supreme Court prohibited the extradition of defendants facing life sentences in October 2001, the only cases in which the United States seeks extradition are those for which U.S. prosecutors give assurances that they will not seek the penalty of natural life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. (Death sentences are excluded under the U.S.-Mexico Treaty.)

Source

Source: US Embassy, Mexico City Web site

The big change, as Ellingwood mentions, which is a major factor in the increase in extraditions, occurred in 2005 when Mexico’s Supreme Court changed the country’s law that prohibits extraditions for cases that could result in life in prison in the U.S. without the possibility of parole.