Guards killed in Guatemala prison riot

GUATEMALA CITY: A riot by gang members in a youth detention centre in Guatemala has left two guards dead and four injured, police said.

The outbreak of violence came less than two weeks after 40 teenage girls died in a fire at a separate nearby youth shelter.

More than 40 youth detainees on Sunday attacked security staff at the Stage II Male Juvenile Detention Center just east of the capital, national police spokesman Pablo Castillo told reporters.

He identified the rioters as members of Barrio 18, one of the gangs in the crime-stricken Central American nation.

He said one security guard was killed and a separate police source who asked not to be named later told AFP a second guard had died.

Emergency services said detainees had lit fires inside the facility, causing two of the inmates to be hurt.

The centre was the scene of a battle between rival gangs in 2005 which left 14 people dead.

It is in the village of San Jose Pinula, where the other deadly blaze struck on March 8 at the nearby Virgin of the Assumption Safe Home. That blaze was believed to have been set by girls protesting abuse and other mistreatment by staff at the centre.

An official for youth affairs at the state human rights prosecution service, Abner Paredes, told AFP that Sunday’s riot was also thought to have been motivated by abusing detainees.

In the case of the Safe Home, staff denied allegations of mistreatment. But three sacked officials from the social welfare ministry have been arrested and charged with manslaughter in that case.

Meanwhile, Guatemala’s Supreme Court had last week lifted the immunity of a lawmaker accused of war crimes dating back to the country’s 1960-1996 internal conflict.

“That’s correct. The immunity has been lifted” for Edgar Ovalle, a deputy for the ruling National Convergence Front, a spokesman for the court, Angel Pineda, said last week. staff