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AMLO Shakes Chapo’s Mother’s Hand, Pledges to Help Her See Son

AMLO Shakes Chapo’s Mother’s Hand, Pledges to Help Her See Son

(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s president shook hands with the mother of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman during a trip to the drug trafficker’s hometown, and said he’ll help get permission to see her son in a U.S. prison.

“I think that for humanitarian reasons she should be allowed to go,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during his morning press conference. “She’s an elderly person and she has all of my respect regardless of who her son is.”

Lopez Obrador said that during a trip over the weekend to supervise public works projects in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Guzman’s hometown, the kingpin’s mother Consuelo Loera asked to speak with him. He decided to walk up to her white SUV and shake her hand because of her advanced age and her plea to see her son before she dies, he said.

He’s already asked the Foreign Ministry to start the necessary paperwork, he said, without providing details.

Lopez Obrador has been widely criticized for continuing to travel during the coronavirus pandemic, and for shaking hands and kissing followers. He promised last week he would stop contact with supporters, but he’s continued to tour the countryside each weekend, and broke his promise for Loera.

Shaking her hand also reignited concerns about his “hugs not bullets” approach to fighting drug violence, and to his decision last year to release Chapo’s son, Ovidio, after his brief capture by security forces triggered attacks by the Sinaloa Cartel on residents of the city of Culiacan.

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