An outspoken prison inmate who has led hunger strikes is suing the Alabama Department of Corrections, arguing a guard tried to get other inmates to kill him.

Robert Earl Council, a Limestone Correctional Facility inmate who has organized and enacted hunger strikes to draw attention to conditions in the state’s prisons, alleges in his suit that Lt. Jeremy Pelzer is threatening his life and asking other inmates who are gang members to kill Council.

According to the suit, Lt. Pelzer told other inmates about Council, “Even if y’all killed him I’ll make sure nothing happens to y’all.”

The Alabama Department of Corrections said that it could not comment on ongoing litigation. The state has yet to make a response in the lawsuit that was filed on November 9.

Andrew Menefee, an attorney for Council, said his client has faced retaliation and death threats from guards since 2019.

“They keep doing it to him because he’s willing to speak out about the horrible conditions going on in the Alabama prison system,” Menefee said.

Council is the co-founder of the prison advocacy group Free Alabama Movement and has sued Alabama prisons dozens of times.

Council’s suit this month further alleges that officers routinely use sham disciplinary hearings to cover up their excessive use of force against inmates. According to the suit, Council has been placed in solitary confinement as a form of punishment for speaking out about prison conditions.

According to his attorney, Council has been locked in solitary for up to eight months at a time and for a total of seven years during his time in Alabama prisons.

The suit asks for Council to be moved out of Limestone and for Lt. Pelzer to be investigated by the Alabama Department of Corrections. It also requests that a 3-person panel be created to oversee any disciplinary actions taken against Council in the future.

The suit names corrections officials John Hamm, Commissioner, Dr. Wendy Williams, Deputy Commissioner for men’s services, Edward Ellington, Institutional Coordinator, and Wardens Williams Streeter and Chadwick Crabtree.

A hearing in the case will be held on November 30.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama in 2019 over unconstitutional conditions in the state’s federal prisons. In 2021, the department filed another complaint stating that the conditions in Alabama prisons had not improved. The state remains under a court order to improve conditions in its prisons and is struggling to address staffing shortages as a part of its requirements.