'El Mayo,' alleged Mexican drug kingpin, appears in US court in wheelchair

By Jack Queen and Luc Cohen

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) -Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the notorious alleged co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, appeared in an El Paso, Texas courtroom in a wheelchair on Thursday after pleading not guilty last week to drug trafficking charges following his dramatic arrest.

Zambada wore a navy sweatshirt that read "carpe diem" ("seize the day") above an image of a soccer ball to his first status conference before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone.

At the 10-minute hearing, Cardone told lawyers she had designated the case as complex - which extends the timeline for trial - and set the next status conference for Sept. 9.

The murky circumstances leading up to the July 25 arrests of Zambada, who is believed to be in his 70s, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of the legendary imprisoned drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, were not discussed at the hearing. El Chapo co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Zambada.

U.S. officials said last week that the 38-year-old Guzman Lopez duped Zambada into boarding a plane by telling him they were going to scope out real estate in northern Mexico, only to fly north of the border - where Guzman Lopez planned to turn himself in.

Zambada's lawyer Frank Perez disputed that version of events, asserting on Saturday that Guzman Lopez and six men in military uniforms "forcibly kidnapped" his client near Culiacan in Mexico's Sinaloa state and then brought him to the United States against his will.

Perez said at the time that Zambada was dealing with some back and leg issues as a result of the violent incident. He and fellow Zambada lawyer Ray Velarde declined to answer reporters' questions about the circumstances of the arrest and the alleged drug lord's health outside the border city's federal courthouse.

Velarde answered "no" when asked by reporters if a white plastic wristband Zambada wore on his arm during the hearing was from a medical clinic.

During the hearing, Zambada wore an interpreter's headset and spoke only once, answering "yes" in Spanish when asked by Cardone if he was comfortable being represented by a lawyer who also represented one of his many co-defendants in the case.

The two men's arrest was a major coup for U.S. law enforcement, which could also reshape the criminal landscape in Mexico.

Guzman Lopez pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges on Tuesday in Chicago federal court. El Chapo is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado.

A lawyer for the Guzman family denied that Guzman Lopez kidnapped Zambada in an interview with a Mexican radio station.

In the Texas case, which was brought in 2012, Zambada was charged with racketeering conspiracy and murder in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Prosecutors said cartel members under the leadership of Zambada and El Chapo kidnapped a Texas resident in 2009 to answer for the loss of a seized marijuana shipment, and kidnapped a U.S. citizen and two members of his family in 2010. Both victims were murdered, prosecutors said.

Zambada also faces charges in four other federal jurisdictions, including the Brooklyn borough of New York City, where El Chapo was tried and convicted. In the Brooklyn case, Zambada is charged with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, a lethal synthetic opioid fueling an epidemic throughout the U.S.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in El Paso, Texas, and Luc Cohen in New YorkEditing by Noeleen Walder, Amy Stevens, Matthew Lewis and Alistair Bell)