Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Claims Staff At Colorado Supermax Are Torturing Him Through Sleep Deprivation

Former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is claiming that staff at the Colorado supermax prison he is held in are torturing him through sleep deprivation.

Guzman detailed the ordeal in a series of previously unreported letters published by Mexican outlet Milenio. There, he also complained about his lack of access to educational programs, work opportunities and basic privileges at ADX Florence, where he has been held since July 2019.

In eight letters dated between 2023 and 2024, which are part of a legal complaint he filed in a Colorado court against the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Prisons and prison officials, Guzmán says he has "complained several times about being woken up every night, after midnight, by a sudden blast of extreme hot air that lasts about 15 minutes."

"It happens four or five times a night and causes my heart to race. It does not let me sleep properly, and the heat increases my blood pressure."

Elsewhere, he claims that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) imposed on him are making him physically and mentally ill. He warned that the restrictions are driving him toward insanity and could even lead to his death.

"The SAMs are punitive, and I am getting sick," he wrote. "I ask that they please remove the SAMs before I have a heart attack or go insane, because under the conditions I am currently living in, which are so cruel and inhumane, that is what will happen."

Mariel Colon,Guzman's lawyer, said last month the drug lord is experiencing "strange and worrying signs" as his mental health deteriorates in prison.

Speaking to a journalist in Mexico, Colon said that while she's "obviously not a psychologist or a psychiatrist," she has known Guzman for almost a decade and has noted significant changes.

"I saw him every day before and since he is in Colorado I see him twice a month and speak with him on the phone on a weekly basis. I can tell you I have noticed strange and worrying signs and, well, they are a bit concerning," she said when asked if the drug lord is experiencing hallucinations.

Colon went on to say the changes are a result of the complete isolation he's subjected to. "The U.S. government keeps him under inhuman conditions. They don't let him leave his cell. He is completely alone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Isolated, can't even see the sunlight. So it's not like it doesn't make sense," she added.

The lawyer went on to detail that her client "can't go to the prison library nor work, engage with other inmates, guards." "They give him his food through a tiny door. He eats, showers, doesn't leave the four walls." He can only get books if Colon sends them to him.

Therefore, she said, Guzman's lawyers are seeking he gets a "more humane treatment." "If he already has to spend the rest of his life in prison, let him at least get access to fresh air a few times a week, to sunlight, to jail programs other inmates access."