The first time he escaped from jail, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán hid in a laundry basket. The second time, he sent a team of specialist engineers to study in Germany, then had them dig a mile-long tunnel from his cell's shower cubicle to a helicopter waiting outside.
Now back behind bars, in a cold cell with reinforced steel bars in the floor, with motion detectors and sniffer dogs all around, and a tank parked out in front of the prison, the 58-year-old head of the Sinaloa drug cartel is ready to try an altogether different method of beating his country’s penal system: he wants to be extradited to the United States.
Roused every four hours from sleep for roll call, cut off from natural light and suffering with high blood pressure, the man named by Chicago as its first Public Enemy No 1 since Al Capone has decided not only to drop his fight against extradition, but wants to speed it up. Jose Refugio Rodríguez, his lawyer, said he now has deep shadows under his eyes and is “desperate” to escape the “inhumane” prison conditions. He wants to be shipped to a medium-security jail in the US, with guaranteed family visits and a promise that he will not be held in isolation.
“He can no longer take this situation,” said Mr Rodríguez, who had previously filed injunctions against any extradition. His client is in the Altiplano prison near Mexico City; the same facility that he tunnelled out of last July, before being recaptured in a bloody raid on his hideout in January.
“All I ask is that they let me sleep. I beg them to let me sleep!" he told Mr Rodríguez. “I can’t take this stress I’m under anymore. I need to be able to sleep. They’re killing me little by little. Let’s find a way to take me to the United States as soon as possible.”
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Guzmán’s wife, Emma Coronel, 26, a former beauty queen, accused the Mexican government of conducting a “vendetta” against her husband, despite his being seriously ill. “If his life is in danger, we will have to do what’s necessary,” she said, noting that she and her twin daughters were already US citizens. “He’s only asking for treatment worthy of a human being.”
Mexico has dropped its earlier objections to Guzmán’s extradition to the US — the main destination of his drugs shipments — but denied that he was subjected to an excessive or punitive regime in the Altiplano jail. “Shouldn’t someone who twice escaped from maximum security prisons be subject to special security measures? The common sense answer is yes,” said Renato Sales, the national security commissioner.
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