Actor Sean Penn's expressing no regrets about his clandestine visit to interview Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
In a brief email exchange with The Associated Press, Penn was asked about images published in Mexican news media Monday that appeared to show officials watching him and actress Kate Del Castillo ahead of their October visit with Guzman.
"I've got nothin' to hide," he wrote.
Guzman was captured last Friday, more than three months after Penn's Oct. 2 meeting with him in central Mexico and six months after escaping from prison.
Penn did not respond directly to questions on whether it was appropriate for him to submit his story to Guzman for approval in advance of publication, or whether he took adequate information and operational security measures to protect his source.
The actor said he worried that officials were monitoring his trip to interview the fugitive. He was right; he just didn't know how closely.
Mexican newspaper El Universal published 10 photographs that appear to show Penn and actress Kate Del Castillo arriving at an airport in October and greeting the men who apparently took them to a small airstrip, from which they flew to the jungle camp to meet Guzman.
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The photos appear to have been taken with a telephoto lens from long distance. The newspaper said Monday they were part of a Mexican government intelligence file that it obtained. Figures that closely resemble Penn and Del Castillo are seen wearing dark glasses, and in Penn's case, a baseball cap.
The newspaper says the intelligence file indicates that Mexican agents had been photographing Del Castillo since her first meeting with Guzman's lawyers in the city of Guadalajara, on June 16.
