Cartel boss has 40-year jail sentence for murder of American DEA agent Enrique Camarena overturned by court

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

A Mexican court on Friday ordered the release of the druglord Rafael Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison, overturning his conviction for the 1985 kidnap and killing of an American Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

The brutal murder marked a low point in US-Mexico relations. The court threw out 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 offence.

A court official said that Caro Quintero would be released because he had already served his time on other charges.

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

Mexico's relations with Washington were damaged when Caro Quintero ordered Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed, purportedly because he was angry about a raid on a 220-acre marijuana plantation in central Mexico named Rancho Bufalo, that was seized by Mexican authorities at Camarena's insistence.

The raid netted up to five tonnes of marijuana and cost Caro Quintero and his colleagues an estimated $8bn (£5.2bn) in lost sales.

Camarena was kidnapped on 7 February 1985, in Guadalajara, a major drug trafficking centre. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves.

US officials accused their Mexican counterparts of letting Camarena's killers get away. Caro Quintero was eventually hunted down in Costa Rica.

At one point, US customs agents almost blocked the border with Mexico, slowing incoming traffic to a standstill while conducting searches of all Mexicans trying to enter the States.