Mexican drugpin Rafael Caro Quintero, who was sentenced to 40 years for the torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985, was released from prison on Friday, Reuters reported.
A federal court in the Mexican state of Jalisco stated Caro Quintero should have been tried at a state level and not on federal charges, CNN reported. The court also overturned two other killings the infamous 61-year-old drug lord was accused of.
The court's decision was based on the legal requisite that the victim be a consular or diplomatic agent in order for the case to be held in a federal court, Latin Times wrote, citing Mexican news site Reforma.
Caro Quintero walked out a free man after serving 28 years of a 40-year sentence. He was serving his time in Mexico's Puente Grande prison, close to the city he used as the base of operations for the drug cartel he founded in the 80s in Guadalajara, according to Latin Times.
U.S law enforcement officials expressed outrage over the Mexican court's decision, and promised to continue efforts to bring Caro Quintero to justice for ordering the killing of a DEA agent, according to the Buenos Aires Herald.
"The Department of Justice, and especially the Drug Enforcement Administration, is extremely disappointed with this result," it said in a statement, describing the court's decision as "deeply troubling."
"The release of this violent butcher is but another example of how good faith efforts by the US to work with the Mexican government can be frustrated by those powerful dark forces that work in the shadows of the Mexican 'justice system,'" th Association of Former Federal Narcotics Agents in the United States said in a statement.
Meanwhile the DEA said it "will vigorously continue its efforts to ensure Caro Quintero faces charges in the United States for the crimes he committed."
According to CNN, Mexican judicial authorities said Caro Quintero's release is ordered "as long as there is no other legal reason to impede it."
Caro Quintero was one of the leaders of the Guadalajara cartel, a forerunner of the Sinaloa cartel, which is currently led by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the country's most-wanted drug lord, Reuters reported.
The cartel he ran grew rich off the cocaine he brought from Colombia and the marijuana it cultivated on farms in the north of Mexico that were later shipped into the U.S. Caro Quintero reportedly forced 4,000 people to work against their will in his drug farms, according to Latin Times.
He was arrested when he was 33, and has spent the last 28 years in prison.