Ex-U.S. drug informant fights extradition

MINNEAPOLIS, March 26 (UPI) -- A former U.S. undercover informant who allegedly participated in drug cartel executions will be executed himself if he is deported to Mexico, his lawyer said.

"Everyone has agreed that (Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez-Peyro) will be tortured and die if he is returned to Mexico," his lawyer, Jodi Goodwin, said during a Minnesota Appeals Court hearing.

Ramirez-Peyro, a former Mexican Highway Patrol officer and paid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement informant known as "Lalo" when he infiltrated the Juarez Cartel, is currently in detention a high-security prison pending deportation proceedings.

Washington has been trying to deport him since 2005, even though he claims he was promised legal U.S. residence, The Miami Herald reported.

Goodwin alleges the U.S. Justice Department is worried he will implicate ICE agents in his actions at the notorious House of Death and has argued Washington is violating the Convention Against Torture if it sends him to Mexico, the Herald said.

His deportation would likely end an investigation into why ICE agents and Justice Department officials let him torture victims at the House of Death, even though it violated ICE and Justice Department guidelines, the newspaper said.

Undercover informants are not permitted to participate in acts of violence, Justice Department policy states.

Ramirez-Peyro allegedly presided over at least five murders at the serial-killing site in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, near the U.S. border, the newspaper said.

"It's got to be the biggest coverup I've ever seen in law enforcement,'' former ICE internal affairs investigator Mark Conrad told the newspaper. "I've never seen anything like it."

U.S. officials declined to comment on the case.