El Chapo's Lawyer Begins Hunger Strike as Supporters Protest

Family members, lawyers and supporters of the world's most infamous drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman protested outside the maximum security prison in Toluca, just north of Mexico City, where he is being held, to denounce the allegedly terribly bad treatment that the Sinaloa Cartel leader has been receiving since he was recaptured early this year. 

“Authorities inside the jail are depriving him of sleep as a form of torture,” said Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, a “voluntary” lawyer representing the drug lord, during a news conference outside the Altiplano Federal Penitentiary, some 30 miles north of the country's capital.

Gonzalez Meza began his questionable indefinite hunger strike — he said he would only drink juice, eat a bowl cereal a day and consume honey — outside the prison to demand better conditions for his client.

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Another of Guzman's lawyers, Juan Pablo Badillo, said he visited his client Feb. 15, and that El Chapo told him of the deplorable conditions he says he is living. 

“They are turning me into a zombie," Chapo told his lawyer. "They don't let me sleep,” he added, saying he was woken up every hour.

With banners and t-shirts with the slogan “Extradition Never!!!!,” the lawyers spoke to international and local media. El Chapo's sister Bernarda Guzman also made a rare appearance during which she complained she had no access to his brother. She also accused prison officials of punishing him for escaping from in 2014.

"They are angry because he got out, but anybody, even an irrational animal, would seek their freedom. He didn't hurt anybody," Bernarda told reporters.

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A third Guzman lawyer, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, earlier this week said his client was so fed up with the prison conditions he is living that he asked him to speed up his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted on many drug trafficking charges in various states.

Back in 2012, before his second escape in 2015, El Chapo held a hunger strike to protest alleged ill-treatment at the very same prison.

However, journalist and writer Anabel Hernandez told teleSUR that he had control of the prison and was treated like a VIP guest.