A US judge has authorized a psychological examination for Joaquin Guzman. Lawyers say El Chapo's mental state is deteriorating in the New York jail where he awaits trial on charges of trafficking from Mexico to the US.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Pgr/Ho/Prensa International/Prensa Internacional via ZUMA
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A federal judge will permit a psychologist to examine the infamous drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman at the New York City jail where he awaits trial on 17 charges related to trafficking. Though he will allow the examination, Judge Brian Cogan said that, like Chapo's lawyers, the psychologist could only assess Guzman through security glass.
"His memory is failing," Guzman's lawyer Eduardo Balarezo told reporters after Wednesday's court hearing. "I don't want it to get to the point where he's not competent or able to assist the defense in preparation for trial," he added.
Guzman, who twice escaped from prison in his native Mexico, stands accused of running the Sinaloa cartel — one of the world's biggest drug empires. The 60-year-old has sat in solitary confinement since his arrival at the facility, which has held some of the US's top terrorism suspects, on January 19.
Chapo has pleaded not guilty to firearms, drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Guzman could face trial as early as April. If convicted, he would likely to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison in the United States.
US officials seek to prevent Guzman from staging any possible escape. In Mexico, he had gained notoriety by twice escaping from prison — the second time in 2015 via a mile-long tunnel dug from the shower in his cell.
'El Chapo' extradited to the United States
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'A marked deterioration'
Lawyers have repeatedly reported poor conditions during Guzman's pretrial detention at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. On Tuesday, Balarezo told the AFP news agency that his client suffers from hallucinations and constant headaches, feels persecuted and depressed, and has difficulty remembering people, places and events. Balarezo said isolation had caused "a marked deterioration in his mental state."
Court papers from the defense claim that officials allow Guzman outside his cell for only one hour per day and have permitted him just a single visit with his daughters. Guzman's lawyers say their client has no fresh air in his "frigid" cell, no soap to wash himself with and only dirty sheets to sleep on. "It is plain to the defense team that something is not right with Mr. Guzman," the papers read.
"If the psychologist evaluates him and then determines that there are competency issues, then we'll deal with that," Balarezo told reporters on Wednesday.
Spectacular prison breaks
Mexican drug baron "Shorty" Guzman is not the first prisoner to want to escape the thick walls, bars, guards and search lights of jail. Here are some of the most spectacular, if not always successful, prison breaks.
Image: Getty Images/New York State Governor's Office/D. McGee
Maximum security in Mexico
In July 2015, Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped the Altiplano prison through a tunnel under his cell's shower - the second time in 14 years that he managed to flee a maximum-security prison. Guards discovered a deep hole with a ladder that led to a tunnel that in turn led to a building on a hill surrounded by pastures.
Image: Reuters/PGR/Attorney General's Office
Nice try
Not as clever as Guzman: In 2011, the wife of inmate Juan Ramirez Tijerina visited her husband in a Mexican prison, where he was serving a sentence for illegal weapons possession. She brought along a large suitcase she planned to lug him out with again. Prison guards, however, found the young man inside - curled up inside in the fetal position.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Sspqr
H-Block 7
In 1983, 38 Irish Republican Army (IRA) inmates broke out of The Maze, considered to be one of Europe's most escape-proof prisons. The Maze was the main prison in Northern Ireland for sentenced republican and loyalist paramilitaries. The inmates used smuggled guns and knives to overpower staff, and hijacked a kitchen van to drive to the main gate, and out of the compound.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Mcerlane
The Alcatraz escape
With the help of sharpened spoons and an improvised drill, three bank robbers managed to burrow their way out of their cells in Alcatraz high security prison in the San Francisco Bay in 1962. To fool the prison guards at bay, the trio placed dummy heads in their beds. Once they were out, they used an inflatable raft made out of raincoats - and vanished.
Image: imago/Kai Koehler
Daring flight
It sounds like a script for Hollywood blockbuster: Pascal Payet twice used helicopters for his dramatic prison breaks. In 2001, the convicted murderer fled from a prison in a French village using a hijacked helicopter. In 2007, he again used a helicopter for a get-away. Previously, he had helped organize the escape of three captives who had been in jail with him - again using a helicopter.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/B. Horvat
Most wanted fugitive
Awaiting trial, serial killer Theodore Robert Bundy escaped from a county law library by jumping from a window. Re-arrested and sent to jail in Colorado, Bundy lost 30 pounds so he could escape again through a small light fixture hole in the cell ceiling. Bundy spread terror across the US, killing numerous women between January 1974 and 1978, when he was finally recaptured and sentenced to death.
Image: picture-alliance/AP
An Easter escape
Inmate Walter Stürm, imprisoned for stealing offenses, left a smug note in his cell after his get-away from a Swiss prison in 1981. "Off hunting Easter eggs," the note read. Stürm had sawed through the bars on his window, let himself down to the ground to the prison yard and fled to freedom by using a ladder. It was his third prison break.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Busting out
In June 2015, two convicted murderers, David Sweat and Richard Matt, broke out of a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, cutting holes in the walls of their adjoining cells, and working their way through a maze of catwalks and pipes to emerge from a manhole. The duo did a practice run the night before the escape. Matt was later killed by police, while Sweat was recaptured, badly injured.
Image: Getty Images/New York State Governor's Office/D. McGee
