Sun, Mar 20, 2016 page7

• Jailed Mexican drug lord ‘El Chapo’ gains weight, reading self-help book

  • AP, MEXICO CITY
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  Drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is getting some self-help advice and gaining a bit of weight in prison under his new tighter-security regime, but Mexico’s formerly most wanted man is apparently not doing so well in the love department.

  Guzman, who tunneled out of the same prison in July last year, has two guards standing outside his cell watching him every minute of the day. There is a dog whose only job is to test his food before he eats it to make sure it is not poisoned.

  He no longer has a television, but he gets free reading material.

  Since he was recaptured in January, Guzman has read the classic Don Quijote and has started a Spanish-language version of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, a California-based evangelical pastor.

  The self-help book contains quotes that might pertain to Guzman, such as: “A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life” and “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”

  The description of his post-escape prison life comes from a federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name under official policy.

  The official and a colleague granted the exclusive interview to The Associated Press following a spate of complaints by Guzman’s lawyers and relatives, saying his health was suffering in prison and that he could not sleep.

  Before he escaped, Guzman was allowed a four-hour conjugal visit every nine days. In addition, the officials said, he was supplied with Viagra.

  However, Guzman has not been given Viagra since he was recaptured and returned to the prison on Jan. 8, nor has he received any conjugal visits. He only applied for permission to renew them this week.

  The officials said Guzman has gained a small amount of weight and lowered his blood pressure since he was taken back to the Altiplano prison west of Mexico City.

  He is under constant observation from a ceiling-mounted camera, which — unlike the one in the cell from which he escaped — has no blind spots.

  Guzman’s associates tunneled him out of prison through the thin concrete floor of his shower stall in July last year in a spot which surveillance cameras were not designed to reach.

  The floors of the prison’s top-security cells have since been reinforced with a 40cm bed of concrete and a double layer of rebar.

  During his most recent time on the run, Guzman met with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, purportedly to discuss a project to document his life in a movie.

  However, Del Castillo said in an interview with ABC aired on Friday that Guzman might have just been infatuated with her, or drug-trafficking character Teresa Mendoza she played in TV series La Reina del Sur.

  “He probably had a crush on Teresa Mendoza,” Del Castillo told Diane Sawyer. “I think he was never interested in the movie.”

  Prosecutors later said her contacts with Guzman, and the meeting in October last year with Guzman and US actor Sean Penn in a remote area of northeastern Mexico, helped them to eventually recapture the drug lord.

  A chain of leaked e-mails between Guzman and Del Castillo suggest authorities were monitoring their text conversations.

  Del Castillo said she did not know she was under surveillance.

  “No, to be honest I didn’t think about it,” she said. “I thought he [Guzman] knew what he was doing by texting.”
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