No pressure from U.S. to extradite drug lord, Mexican official says

Mexico City, Jan 24 (EFE).- Mexico is not being pressured by the United States to extradite drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman, but the process has been speeded up, Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said.

"Not in any way. I, personally, am the one who deals with the majority of security matters with the United States and, of course, they've never made a comment in that regard," the Cabinet official said in an interview with Radio Formula.

President Enrique Peña Nieto said on Friday that the Attorney General's Office was working to "accelerate" the drug trafficker's extradition to the United States.

"From the start, we said there was no opposition to this process. ... here, we're doing it as quickly as possible, within the legal framework," Osorio Chong said.

Guzman, who was captured on Jan. 8 in his home state of Sinaloa, faces drug, money laundering, criminal conspiracy and other charges in Arizona, Texas, California and New York.

Actress Kate del Castillo, whose relationship with the Sinaloa cartel leader is being investigated, "was never under surveillance," Osorio Chong said.

Guzman's meeting with Del Castillo and actor Sean Penn, of which the AG's office was aware, was only one part of the operation to recapture the drug lord, Osorio Chong said.

The 43-year-old Del Castillo's name surfaced in connection with Guzman on Jan. 9, when Rolling Stone magazine published Penn's article about his secret meeting with the fugitive in northwestern Mexico in October 2015.

Penn wrote that Del Castillo had arranged the meeting, while Mexican authorities say Guzman had enlisted her help in making a biopic of his life.

Guzman had escaped from a maximum-security prison outside Mexico City through a 1.5-kilometer (0.9-mile) tunnel dug to his cell on July 11.

He had earlier busted out of a Mexican prison in 2001 and evaded authorities for more than 13 years before being recaptured on Feb. 22, 2014, in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.