Mexico City, Mar 2 (EFE).– Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman has asked his legal team to speed up the extradition process from Mexico to the United States due to the harsh conditions at the prison where he is being held, one of the drug lord’s attorneys said Wednesday.

Attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez told Radio Formula that he met on Tuesday with Guzman, who is “desperate” and “despondent” over the conditions at the prison, where he is unable to sleep due to bed checks conducted at least once per night.

“He asked that we do whatever we can to put an end to the situation he’s living in … and he told me: ‘Try to make my extradition as fast as possible, try to see if we can talk with the American government,” Rodriguez said.

Guzman faces drug, money laundering, criminal conspiracy and other charges in Arizona, Texas, California and New York.

“This action reflects his desperation in light of the position taken by the Mexican state toward him,” Rodriguez said, adding that he planned to speak “with the U.S. lawyers to see how we’re going to negotiate.”

The attorney said last week that the drug lord was willing to plead guilty if extradited by Mexico to the United States in exchange for “a reasonable sentence” to be served at a medium-security prison.

A government official said Tuesday that extraditing the drug lord to the United States would “not hurt the ego” of Mexico, adding that it would be best to hand the cartel boss over to the U.S. government at the earliest possible time.

Guzman “wants the acts of torture of which he is a victim to end and he sees that the only solution is reaching an agreement with the government” of the United States, Rodriguez said, adding that it would be at least two months before the situation was resolved.

The Mexican government’s strategy is one “of physically and mentally wearing down Joaquin,” who “has reached the limits of his resistance,” Rodriguez said.

Federal bureau of prisons chief Eduardo Guerrero said Tuesday that Guzman’s human rights were not being violated by waking him up every four hours for a bed check.

“You have to understand that he has escaped on two occasions from a maximum-security prison, now is not going to be the third time he escapes, he’s in a penitentiary, not in a spa,” Guerrero told Imagen Radio.

Guzman escaped from the Altiplano maximum-security prison outside Mexico City through a 1.5-kilometer (nearly one-mile) tunnel dug to his cell on July 11, 2015.

He had earlier busted out of a Mexican prison in 2001 and evaded authorities for more than 13 years before being recaptured on Feb. 22, 2014, in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.

The drug lord was recaptured on Jan. 8 in his home state of Sinaloa. EFE