Mexico weighs house arrest for aged drug lord

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s government is studying a request to place imprisoned 86-year-old drug lord Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo under house arrest, an official said Saturday.

Fonseca Carrillo is considered one of the founders of modern Mexican drug trafficking. He is serving a 40-year sentence for the 1985 slaying of Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.

A federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said the government is “analyzing the legal aspects of the possibility” of allowing him to serve out his sentence under house arrest. He is currently being held at a top-security prison in the western state of Jalisco.

Mexican courts have said Fonseca Carrillo is eligible for the program, as are other aged or ill inmates.

His age has been a matter of debate, but most sources believe he was born in 1930.

Rafael Caro Quintero, also convicted in Camarena’s death, was released by an erroneous judicial ruling in 2013.

Another aging drug lord, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, remains in prison in the case.