Head Jailer from Chapo's First Escape Is About to Become a Congressman in Mexico Rafa Fernandez de Castro - Fusion
go to original August 13, 2015

The lack of transparency and accountability following El Chapo Guzmán’s jail break last month shows just how little the Mexican government has evolved since the first time the drug lord escaped prison in 2001.

That escape 14 years ago set in motion a cycle of impunity that will come to an improbable conclusion next month when Enrique Pérez Rodríguez, the former head of federal prisons who’s allegedly under investigation for letting El Chapo escape the first time, becomes an alternate congressman to Miguel Ángel Yunes, a conservative with the PAN party.

Why does that matter? Because when and if Yunes resigns from Congress to run for Governor of Veracruz next year, as many expect he will, Pérez will slide quietly into the seat of national lawmaker, giving him full legal immunity from any further government investigation. The practice is so common in Mexico it even has a name: pulling a “Juanito.”

It would cap a remarkable political comeback for Pérez, who was fired from his post as director of prisons after El Chapo escaped on his watch in 2001. The Mexican daily El Financiero, which gained access to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) 2001 case file, reports that Pérez is still under investigation for that event.

Read the rest at Fusion

Illustration by Victor Abarca

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