The convicted and well-known drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman, who is known by the nickname “El Chapo,” has asked Mexican authorities to move him from the US, where he is serving his sentence, back to his native country.
El Chapo is currently serving his sentence in a supermax federal prison in Colorado that he has described as “cruel and unfair,” Mexico News Daily reported.
At the height of his power, Guzman was Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, as he ran a cartel responsible for smuggling mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the US for over 25 years, prosecutors said in court papers, Fox News reported.
Guzman was extradited to the US in 2017, and in 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison. But now, the publication says he is pleading with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to bring him back to Mexico.
Lawyers for the drug lord said the conditions Guzman is facing are so bad they aren’t even offering him medical assistance.
“He doesn’t see the sun, the food is of very bad quality, there is no health care,” attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez told reporters, The New York Post reported.
Rodriguez continued saying that Guzman had told prison staff his teeth hurt, but instead of treating a problem he had with one of his molars, they “took them out so he wouldn’t fuss.”
“He is hurting in a trial that was not in accordance with due process,” Rodriguez said, adding that he is kept in isolation and has only been allowed six phone calls since March 2022.
Rodriguez says that the restrictions Guzman is facing are “physical torture” and that the cartel boss’s pleas are an “SOS” for help.
On Tuesday, Lopez Obrador addressed the possible extradition of Guzman to Mexico, saying he had not seen any requests but that he would look into it.
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