TMCnet News
INTERNATIONAL: Afghan prisoners riot(The Birmingham Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Terror convicts and hundreds of other inmates clashed with guards and took control of parts of a high-security prison in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, officials said last night. Police and soldiers surrounded the Policharki Prison as government officials negotiated through loudspeakers with the inmates, who included al Qaida and Taliban militants. Inmates agreed to allow 70 female prisoners to move from a wing of the prison they had captured to a wing still under official control, said Mohammed Qasim Hashimzai, deputy justice minister. He refused to give any details about the prisoners' demands. The trouble began when prisoners forced guards out of a prison block housing about 1,300 inmates, said Abdul Salaam Bakshi, chief of prisons in Afghanistan. He accused al Qaida and Taliban inmates of inciting other prisoners. The Afghan army deployed more than 100 soldiers, some with helmets and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, to surround the prison and with NATO peacekeepers, parked ten tanks and armoured personnel carriers outside the gates. "All the problem is inside the prison," Bakshi said. "We want to peacefully solve this problem." Hashimzai said at least four inmates were injured but prisoners refused an offer for them to be treated. No guards were hurt. |