US trial of Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' begins amid heavy security

NEW YORK - The trial of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will begin with lawyers' opening statements in a federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday, amid intense public attention and extraordinary security measures.

Federal prosecutors say that as leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, Guzman, 61, directed massive shipments of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine bound for the United States. He faces 17 criminal counts and a potential life sentence if convicted.

As well as smuggling drugs to the United States, the Sinaloa Cartel has played a major role in narco violence between rival gangs that has torn areas of Mexico apart and defied successive governments

More than 200,000 people have been killed - many in cartel feuds - since the Mexican government sent troops in to take on the drug gangs in 2006.

Guzman's lawyers have signaled that they intend to downplay their client's role in the cartel and argue that the prosecutors' witnesses are motivated by self interest and not believable.

Guzman, who twice dramatically escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, has been kept in solitary confinement in Manhattan and transported to court in Brooklyn in a heavily guarded motorcade.

The security around him is so strict that US District Judge Brian Cogan, who is presiding over the case, last week denied a motion by Guzman asking to hug his wife before the trial.

The jurors will remain anonymous and be escorted to and from by armed US marshals. Prosecutors have said the security is necessary because of Guzman's history of intimidating and even ordering murders of potential witnesses. Guzman's lawyers have called those claims unfounded.

Reuters