'El Chapo' says he can't sleep partly because of scary guard dog

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman said he can't get a good night's sleep in prison partly because of a scary guard dog.

Guzman's lawyer, Jose Luis Gonzalez Meza, provided a message dated Jan. 16 from the incarcerated drug kingpin to the media in which he describes his uncomfortable stay in Mexico's Altiplano Federal Prison.

"They wake me for roll call in the day every hour and in the night every two hours, and there is a dog on the side that barks a lot and also scares my sleep," Guzman writes in the communiqué.

Guzman and his lawyers continuously assert the drug lord is being mistreated since his Jan. 8 arrest in the city of Los Mochis in his home state of Sinaloa. Earlier this month, Mexican government officials denied allegations by Guzman's lawyers that he is being treated worse than Adolf Hitler would be in prison.

Gonzalez Meza told Radio Formula the Mexican government has been treating his client inhumanely.

"He has no access to his family, he has no access to his lawyers, he has no access to the most basic needs," Gonzalez Meza said. "He can't take his food, he can't sleep, that is, I think that even if they caught Adolf Hitler alive, they would not do to him what they are doing to Mr. Guzman Loera."

Mexico's Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong then denied accusations that Guzman was being mistreated by prison officials, adding that Guzman had recently been visited by a lawyer.

"We're not going to make the mistake of violating due process and hand him an excuse to find a possible way out," Chong said.