Murder, torture, drugs: Cartel kingpin's wife says that's not the 'El Chapo' she knows
Anabel Hernandez
Feb 21, 2016
She sweeps into the restaurant dressed elegantly in black slacks and a sleeveless, pale pink blouse, a white ribbon tied demurely at the neck. Her bag is Prada. If there are bodyguards, they have waited discreetly outside.
As wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Emma Coronel Aispuro seems anxious not to cause a scene as she moves into a private room in the crowded restaurant, a popular seafood place on the sweltering banks of the Tamazula River. She smiles softly and speaks quietly.
“I don’t have any experience at this kind of thing,” she says.
The 26-year-old former beauty queen has never spoken publicly about her eight years of marriage to a man who has headed one of the world’s most violent criminal organizations, responsible for much of the marijuana, heroin, methamphetamines and murder produced in Mexico.
Now, she says, she wants to get out an urgent message: Her husband’s life, she says, is in danger. She fears he may not survive his current stint in “El Altiplano,” the prison where he has been in solitary confinement since Jan. 8. That’s when Mexican authorities grabbed him in a shootout in the Pacific town of Los Mochis, almost six months after his second breakout from the maximum security lockup.
“They want to make him pay for his escape. They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell,” Coronel says. “They are right there, all day long, calling attendance. They don’t let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom.”
Guzman’s fabled escapes — most recently, via a nearly mile-long tunnel dug under a shower in his cell — have been a source of embarrassment for Mexican authorities, and they appear determined to avoid a third. Since his latest confinement, his wife has been allowed to see him only once, for 15 minutes. She says her husband is “slowly being tortured” and is suffering from dangerously elevated blood pressure.
“I am afraid for his life,” she says.
“They want to make him pay for his escape. They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell,” Coronel says. “They are right there, all day long, calling attendance. They don’t let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom.”
Guzman’s fabled escapes — most recently, via a nearly mile-long tunnel dug under a shower in his cell — have been a source of embarrassment for Mexican authorities, and they appear determined to avoid a third. Since his latest confinement, his wife has been allowed to see him only once, for 15 minutes. She says her husband is “slowly being tortured” and is suffering from dangerously elevated blood pressure.
“I am afraid for his life,” she says.
Cont http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-el-chapo-wife-20160221-story.html
Anabel Hernandez
Feb 21, 2016
She sweeps into the restaurant dressed elegantly in black slacks and a sleeveless, pale pink blouse, a white ribbon tied demurely at the neck. Her bag is Prada. If there are bodyguards, they have waited discreetly outside.
As wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Emma Coronel Aispuro seems anxious not to cause a scene as she moves into a private room in the crowded restaurant, a popular seafood place on the sweltering banks of the Tamazula River. She smiles softly and speaks quietly.
“I don’t have any experience at this kind of thing,” she says.
The 26-year-old former beauty queen has never spoken publicly about her eight years of marriage to a man who has headed one of the world’s most violent criminal organizations, responsible for much of the marijuana, heroin, methamphetamines and murder produced in Mexico.
Now, she says, she wants to get out an urgent message: Her husband’s life, she says, is in danger. She fears he may not survive his current stint in “El Altiplano,” the prison where he has been in solitary confinement since Jan. 8. That’s when Mexican authorities grabbed him in a shootout in the Pacific town of Los Mochis, almost six months after his second breakout from the maximum security lockup.
“They want to make him pay for his escape. They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell,” Coronel says. “They are right there, all day long, calling attendance. They don’t let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom.”
Guzman’s fabled escapes — most recently, via a nearly mile-long tunnel dug under a shower in his cell — have been a source of embarrassment for Mexican authorities, and they appear determined to avoid a third. Since his latest confinement, his wife has been allowed to see him only once, for 15 minutes. She says her husband is “slowly being tortured” and is suffering from dangerously elevated blood pressure.
“I am afraid for his life,” she says.
“They want to make him pay for his escape. They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell,” Coronel says. “They are right there, all day long, calling attendance. They don’t let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom.”
Guzman’s fabled escapes — most recently, via a nearly mile-long tunnel dug under a shower in his cell — have been a source of embarrassment for Mexican authorities, and they appear determined to avoid a third. Since his latest confinement, his wife has been allowed to see him only once, for 15 minutes. She says her husband is “slowly being tortured” and is suffering from dangerously elevated blood pressure.
“I am afraid for his life,” she says.
Cont http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-el-chapo-wife-20160221-story.html
