The wife of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman says she fears for his life in prison.
The wife of notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman says she fears for his life in prison and that Mexican authorities want to "make him pay" because of his escapes from maximum security institutions.
Speaking publicly for the first time about her drug kingpin spouse, Emma Coronel Aispuro told Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo that Guzman is being treated badly by his guards.
Read: Surveillance Footage of El Chapo's Prison Escape Surfaces
“They want to make him pay for his escape,” she said. “They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell. They don’t let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom.”
EXCLUSIVA de Telemundo con esposa de #ElChapo, #EmmaCoronel reveló qué sintió al conocerlo https://t.co/8knVo8U6hp pic.twitter.com/0kzOQiRYuo
— Telemundo (@Telemundo) February 22, 2016
She is a former beauty queen who married Guzman on her 18th birthday in 2008. Coronel has dual Mexican-American citizenship and gave birth to the couple's twin daughters in California in 2011.
Read: Newly Released Texts Show 'El Chapo' Didn't Know Who Sean Penn Was
Her husband is guarded by dogs and constantly moved at the Altiplano prison, from which he escaped last year in a brazen break-out that involved a nearly mile-long tunnel dug under his cell.
"Of course I am afraid for his life," she said in the interview broadcast Sunday. The conversation took place on Feb. 12, the network said.
“I’m in love with (Guzman),” Coronel said. “He’s my daughters’ father and I believe that I have already demonstrated that I will follow him anywhere.”
She said she was a fan of actress Kate del Castillo, who helped arrange a meeting between the drug czar and American actor Sean Penn while Guzman was still a fugitive.
Guzman was captured in January following a shootout with Mexican authorities that left six people dead.
Watch: See 'El Chapo' Shackled Behind Bars At Maximum-Security Prison
