Here’s How Prison Guards Are Torturing El Chapo in Jail

“They do not let me sleep.”

As we’ve learned in the past, re-captured drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera is having a pretty miserable time now that he’s back behind bars again. He’s essentially tormented by dogs, constant bright lighting, and, based on recent reports, sleep deprivation so severe that El Chapo feels like a “zombie.” 

CNN reports that Guzman’s lawyer Juan Pablo Badillo gave an interview to a Mexican press outlet in which he quoted Guzman, who reportedly said, “Every two hours, at night, they wake me up to take roll. … They are turning me into a zombie. They do not let me sleep. All I want is just for them to let me sleep.” 

Authorities in Altiplano Federal Prison where El Chapo is being held likely would say they have excellent reasons to keep a close eye on their charge. That’s the same facility from which Guzman escaped so spectacularly in July, 2015, disappearing through a hole in a restroom area and following a nearly mile-long tunnel to freedom. 

According to CNN’s report, the prison has already added 400 of some 1000 new cameras, special sensors and steel rods in the floors—all apparently in response to El Chapo’s previously owning their security systems with his bravura prison break. 

Listeners to the radio show which broadcast attorney Badillo’s claims about El Chapo’s treatment were not sympathetic. One characteristic response read by the show’s host asked, “… And the thousands of people who he had killed and who he poisoned with his drugs, who is protecting them?” 

Badillo responded as any lawyer might, by claiming the case against El Chapo hasn’t been proven yet. 

While CNN reported El Chapo faces indictments in seven places in the United States, the drug lord’s attorney claimed they hadn’t spoken much about it yet, but Guzman wants “‘…to be judged by Mexican laws.'”

Perhaps if El Chapo makes it to an American penal institution guards will at least let him sleep a little more. 

h/t CNN