Infamous Mexican Drug Lord Ordered Freed, Sentence in DEA Agent's Murder Overturned Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
go to original August 9, 2013

Rafael Caro Quintero, seen at a Guadalajara prison in 2005, has had his conviction for ordering the murder of a DEA agent overturned. (AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican court on Friday ordered the release of infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison for the 1985 kidnap and killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, a brutal murder that marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.

The court overturned Caro Quintero's 40-year sentence for the murder of Enrique Camarena, ruling he was improperly tried in a federal court for a crime that should have been treated as a state offense.

A court official who was not authorized to speak on the record said that Caro Quintero would be released because he had already served his time on other charges.

The 61-year-old Caro Quintero is considered the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking. He established a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico's largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.

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