|
 Penn also told talk show host Charlie Rose that he regrets the
fallout from the Rolling Stone article based on his interview with
Guzman. Their meeting in a jungle hideout was the first interview
anyone scored with the fugitive drug lord, and Penn said he had
hoped it would spur a broader discussion on the drug war.
In Penn's first major television interview about the meeting, Rose
asked the actor whether he believed Mexico President Enrique Pena
Nieto's government had deliberately sought to credit him with
Guzman's capture to put him at risk from the Sinaloa Cartel.
"Yes," Penn replied.
"There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and
I with El Chapo, that it was... 'essential' to his capture," Penn
said.
 "We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the
notion that someone found him before they did," added Penn.
The actor, who has won Oscars for "Mystic River" and "Milk," said he
met Guzman "many weeks" before his arrest, in a location far from
where the kingpin fell into police hands in northern Mexico six
months after staging a spectacular prison break through a tunnel in
his cell floor.
"I have a terrible regret," Penn said in the interview recorded on
Thursday in California. "I have a regret that the entire discussion
about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to
contribute to this discussion about the policy on the war on drugs."
"Let me be clear. My article has failed," said Penn.
Rolling Stone published Penn's article on Saturday, a day after
Guzman's recapture. The piece cited the drug lord boasting about
smuggling drugs into the United States, and about laundering
ill-gotten gains. (http://rol.st/1PXKv56)
[to top of second column] |
Guzman's lawyer on Wednesday accused Penn of lying, and said he
should be called to give evidence.
"He (Guzman) could not have made these claims... Mr Guzman is a very
serious man, very intelligent," Juan Pablo Badillo said. "Where's
the proof? Where's the audio?"
Neither Penn's publicist nor Rolling Stone have commented on
Badillo's claims. The excerpt of the Rose interview, published ahead
of its full airing on CBS on Sunday, did not address the lawyer's
comments.
A government spokesman said on Tuesday that Mexico was not directly
investigating Penn nor his companion, actress Kate del Castillo, but
rather the circumstances around the meeting.
(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Jill Serjeant; Editing by Simon
Gardner and David Gregorio)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
