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El Chapo is being treated like any other prisoner and subjected to torturous conditions in prison, experts have told Daily Star Online.



Joaquin Guzman, 62, was jailed for life last month after a highly publicised trial in the US.

He was found guilty by a jury in February of trafficking tonnes of cocaine, heroin and marijuana while head of the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel.

Chapo has been transferred to the US Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, where he will spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement.



Prisoners are typically confined for around 23 hours a day to solitary cells, each with a narrow window about 42 inches (107 cm) high and angled upward so only the sky is visible.

They can watch TV in their cells, and have access to religious services, educational programs and a commissary.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

But special restrictions are used to ensure that inmates cannot exert influence or make threats beyond the prison walls.

They cannot move around without being escorted and head counts are done at least six times a day.

Duncan Wood, Director of the Wilson Centre’s Mexico Institute, told Daily Star Online: “He is going to be treated like any other criminal, but one with a proven record of trying and succeeding in escaping from prison.

“They’re going to make sure he’s under extra security measures in jail.



“I don’t think he’s going to be a target for violence or aggression from other prisoners.”

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

One report, published in The Nation in June, alleged that inmates had been force fed in the supermax prison.

Investigative journalist Aviva Stahl said its prisoners are subjected to "more extreme conditions of isolation and sensory deprivation than any other facility in the country”.



Various experts have equated solitary confinement with psychological torture.



Asked if Chapo might attempt to escape, Gladys McCormick, a professor at Syracuse University and expert on Mexico's political violence, said: “I think it’s impossible, it’s solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.



“He’ll be outside for one hour a day, I think it’s highly unlikely that we will ever set eyes on him again.



(Image: REUTERS)

“He is gone, separated from society. These are the baddest of the bad are in this prison.”

Despite Chapo’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment, the Sinaloa Cartel remains one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organisations.

Last month, he announced that he wants to donate his £9.8 billion fortune to indigenous Mexican communities when he dies.



His lawyers Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza and Juan Pablo Badillo Soto, claim the request was made during phone calls between the drug lord and his mother, sister and daughters in August.