Miami, Feb 19 (EFE).– The wife of imprisoned Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman has broken her silence and spoken out in defense of her husband in an exclusive interview with Telemundo, saying she fears for his life and that he is being denied his basic human rights.

The U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster uploaded some clips of an interview with Emma Coronel Aispuro that the network will broadcast in full on Sunday.

“I fear for his life,” said the wife of the Sinaloa drug cartel chief, who escaped from the Altiplano I maximum-security prison outside Mexico City in July 2015 but was recaptured in January and returned to the same penitentiary.

Coronel, who married Guzman in 2007, complained about her husband’s prison conditions, maintained that his health was suffering and said she would hold the Mexican government responsible for whatever happens to him.

“We don’t know if he’s eating well. In general, we don’t know his situation because we haven’t been able to see him,” she said.

Guzman’s wife said it was clear that the drug lord was being made to pay for having escaped last year. “They say they’re not punishing him, but of course they are.”

“El Chapo” is being constantly monitored day and night, she said. “They’re there all day long. They’re doing roll call at all hours. They don’t let him sleep. He doesn’t have any privacy, even to go to the bathroom.”

“I think any human being has the right to have at least the basic things of a human being. It’s clear they’re not enforcing that in his case,” Coronel said.

None of the video clips provide insight into Guzman’s personality, the couple’s private life, their wedding or the drug lord’s relationship with the couple’s twin daughters, aged three and a half.

Journalist Anabel Hernandez conducted the interview, which was produced in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program.

Guzman escaped from Altiplano I on July 11, 2015, using a nearly mile-long tunnel that authorities say was built at great expense, but Mexican security forces tracked him down on Jan. 8 in his native state of Sinaloa.

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. EFE