Mexican judge jails three Joaquin Guzman prison guards

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-33661453

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A Mexican judge has ordered three prison officers to be formally taken into custody while an inquiry continues into a jailbreak by the country's most wanted criminal.

Joaquin Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped on 11 July.

The judge said he was looking more deeply into the actions of two prison guards and an officer who had been in the prison's monitoring control centre.

Guzman escaped through a tunnel from his cell to a building outside.

The judge alleged the officer in the monitoring control centre at the time had given conflicting answers to questions.

He said he wanted to look more closely at why the two prison guards had not answered the phone at the time of the escape.

The judge said there was insufficient evidence to jail four other suspects.

It is the second time Guzman has escaped from a top-security prison.

In 2001 he broke out of Puente Grande jail, reportedly hidden in a laundry cart after bribing officials.

He was on the run for 13 years before being re-arrested in February 2014. The capture was seen as a coup for President Enrique Pena Nieto.

His escape is a serious blow to the president, who called it "an affront to the state".

Mr Pena Nieto said he was confident that security forces "have the strength and determination to recapture this criminal".

The authorities are also focusing their investigations on his home state of Sinaloa, from where he ran the cartel of the same name.

While the Sinaloa cartel has lost ground to rival gangs in past years it continues to be one of the most powerful drug trafficking organisations in the world.

Guzman's personal fortune is estimated at $1bn (£640m).