Prison massacre ringleaders to be moved

Brazil’s deadliest jail riot in decades a turf war between drug gangs, say authorities

THE Brazilian government will move gang leaders to other federal prisons after the country’s deadliest prison massacre in decades left 56 inmates dead in a scene of mutilated and burnt bodies this week.

Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said yesterday that authorities would move quickly to identify and transfer the gang bosses out of the crowded jail in the remote jungle state of Amazonas where the riot occurred on Monday.

A drug gang known as North Family, which controls the prison complex in the city of Manaus, attacked inmates from a rival criminal group that encroached on its turf, exchanging fire with police and taking a dozen prison guards hostage, officials said.

Machete-wielding gangs decapitated inmates and threw their bodies over a wall of the Anisio Jobim prison, which houses more than three times as many prisoners as it was built for in 1982.

A total of 184 inmates escaped during the rioting, and so far 40 had been caught, Moraes said.

The fighting ranks among the most deadly of numerous prison riots across Latin America in the past decade.

State public security secretary Sergio Fontes called it the biggest massacre ever committed at a prison in the state.

Outside, heavily armed police hunted for inmates who escaped through a series of tunnels discovered at the prison complex.

Fontes said the gruesome spectacle of decapitated bodies found by police after order was restored at the prison appeared aimed at sending a message from the North Family to rivals from the First Capital Command (PCC), one of Brazil’s largest gangs.

The PCC’s base is in Sao Paulo, some 2 700km to the southeast.

“During the negotiations [to end the riot], the prisoners had almost no demands,” Fontes told radio network Tiradentes.

“We think they had already done what they wanted – kill members of the rival organisation.”

It was the latest eruption of horrific violence to hit Brazil’s underfunded and overcrowded prisons.

In October, deadly riots broke out at three prisons, blamed on fighting between members of the country’s two largest gangs, the PCC and the Red Command (CV).

During that episode, rioting inmates took visitors hostage, beheaded rivals and burnt others alive, killing 33 people in all, the authorities said.

In 1992, a riot in Sao Paulo’s Carandiru prison left 111 people dead.

Brazil’s prisons are often controlled by drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside are also fought out among inmates.

“There is a silent war of drug trafficking, and the state needs to intervene,” Fontes said.

“What did we see in this case? One faction fighting another because each wants more money. The fight is for money and space.”

Brazil has struggled for years against a lucrative and violent drug trade.

But jailing drug traffickers has done little to solve the problem.

Human rights groups have long complained about conditions in Brazilian prisons.

“The problem starts with overcrowding,” lawyer and activist Marcos Fuchs said.

“When you put inmates from rival factions in the same prison unit, the state has no control over what happens inside.” – Reuters, AFP