Mexico City, September 14 (teleSUR-RHC)-- A Mexican federal court has ruled in favor of the notorious drug kingpin Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseca, granting him the benefit of house arrest to purge the last 10 years of a 40-year prison sentence due to his responsibility in the torture and death of a DEA agent.    

Fonseca, now 85 years old, is awaiting the ruling of an appeal filed by federal prosecutors who are against his release.  

In late 2013, Rafael Caro Quintero was released from jail causing an uproar with the U.S. government, who had asked for his extradition when he completed his term in a Mexican prison. Soon after, Mexican authorities issued an arrest warrant for Caro Quintero.    

Caro Quintero had been detained and sentenced in connection with the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar.  After his arrest, the drug lord offered to pay the Mexican foreign debt in a year if released.  The country's foreign debt was just under $90 billion in 1985.      

Fonseca is the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel and is also from Sinaloa, considered to be the cradle of nearly 80 percent of Mexico's drug traffickers.  In fact, Don Neto is from the same Sinaloan municipality – Badiraguato – as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

He founded the Guadalajara cartel along with Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who are also from Badiraguato. Felix Gallardo is still in jail, but in Sinaloa experts and other drug traffickers assure Felix Gallardo operates from prison through his lawyers, employees and family.  Felix Gallardo is the uncle of the Tijuana cartel bosses, the Arellano Felix brothers.      
 
The drug trafficker's lawyers said they expect the federal attorney general's office's (PGR) appeal will fail and that they are only waiting for the authorities to determine where Fonseca is to complete the last 10 years of his sentence under house arrest.        
 
The Mexican penal code allows for house arrest to be granted to the elderly or sick, which is the case on both grounds for Fonseca.  According to his lawyers, if his house arrest request were to be denied, it would violate the law.  Two years ago, the federal court denied him the benefit of house arrest.