Brazil prison riot leaves at least 34 dead

The Associated Press (via MSNBC/Google News) reports:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Police entering a prison after a three-day rebellion found the bodies of at least 34 inmates, some of them mutilated, police said Tuesday.

Police were still securing the Benfica detention center and feared they could find more bodies, said Raphael Martins, a Rio police spokesman.

At least 14 of the 900 inmates escaped and three were recaptured.

The revolt started Saturday and ended Monday night after police gave in to a demand by inmates to separate prisoners belonging to different gangs. A 42-year-old guard who was held hostage was later shot dead by inmates Sunday as he tried to escape the prison in the northern Rio district of Leopoldina.

Relatives of inmates camped outside the detention center claimed the guard had been killed by police, who mistook him for a fleeing prisoner.

Rio state legislator Geraldo Moreira said he counted 28 bodies.

“I saw severed heads. I saw body parts thrown on the ground and in the garbage,” Moreira told the Jovem Pan radio station. “It turned my stomach and, after a while, I had to walk out.”

The Rio revolt came slightly more than a month after prisoners at an overcrowded prison in the Amazon state of Rondonia killed 14 fellow prisoners.

The Rio prison uprising began when detainees attempting to escape broke through the main gate of the detention center. When police intervened, prisoners attacked officers, grabbed their guns and took 26 guards and staffers hostage.

Rebellions and jailbreaks are common in Brazilian prisons, which are often criticized by human rights groups for overcrowding and abuses.

In Sao Paulo, 250 miles south of Rio de Janeiro, six heavily armed men marched into a detention center Monday and ordered the five guards to release the center’s 188 prisoners, police said in a statement.

Police said 145 prisoners escaped, but 43 chose to remain at the center. Police later recaptured 67 of the escapees.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.