A concrete cage “worse than death” nestled in a distant a part of the Rocky Mountains is dwelling to among the world’s most infamous criminals.
Drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are among the many lethal inmates at ADX Florence, also called Supermax jail in Colorado. Nickmaned the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” the jail has been described as a “clear model of hell” by a former warden.
No man has ever managed to break free from the maximum security clink – even El Chapo -who was famously smuggled from prison in a laundry basket in 2001, before 14 years later pulling off another escape by sneaking out of a hatch beneath his shower.
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El Chapo, who was head of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, is serving a life sentence and 30 years there for murder conspiracy and drug charges after his conviction in 2019 and has been under lock and key at ADX Florence for over four years.
In a letter obtained by CBS News, the 66-year-old described the “psychological torment” he was struggling and he begged for his spouse and daughters to be allowed to go to him.
The jailhouse opened in 1995 and it was initially constructed in order that probably the most violent inmates, usually murderers and terrorists, may very well be remoted in a approach that saved everybody protected.
A dozen large guard towers encompass the jail that homes as much as 490 inmates. Lags are locked of their 7-by-12-foot cells for 23 hours a day with only one slit-shaped window for them to glimpse the empty sky outdoors.
Meals are eaten inside cells that encompass furnishings made from poured concrete.
In 2012, a lawsuit was launched towards the U.S. Bureau of Prisons after inmates had been recognized with madness whereas staying at ADX Florence.
It claimed prisoners would wail and bang on partitions whereas El Chapo’s trial legal professional later described it as “more torture… it’s just awful”.
A former warden on the escape-proof jail, Even Robert Hood, mentioned: “This is not built for humanity. I think that being there, day by day, it’s worse than death.”
The ex-boss, who labored there from 2002 to 2005, additionally mentioned El Chapo was most probably to be in an extremely safe unit known as “Range 13” the place probably the most notorious lags are consistently watched by cameras.
One man who spent a decade in “Range 13” was former financial institution robber Jack Powers who bit off his pinky fingers, reduce his personal testicle and scrotum and severed his earlobes.
Mexican gang chief Manual Torrez died contained in the jail in 2005 after being battered within the yard by fellow prisoners.
Other inmates embody Ramzi Yousef, one of many major perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Phillippine Airlines Flight 434.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who planted a stress cooker bomb on the end line of the 2013 Boston Marathon killing three folks and injuring 250, and former FBI agent Robert Hanssen turned Russian spy are additionally incarcerated there.
Some British nationals presently locked up contained in the jail, embody Alexanda Amon Kotey, an ISIS Beatles member referred to as Jihadi George and Al-Qaeda operatives, Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali and Richard Reid.
Speaking final 12 months, El Chapo’s legal professional, Marc Fernich mentioned: “Though he now gets outdoor exercise time, he doesn’t get many visits. He seemed sad, everything about him is different. His demeanor, his eyes, even his hair, they shaved his head.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve been convicted of the most heinous crimes or horrible crimes, I don’t think that anybody deserves to be treated that way.”
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