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Brazilian inmates promise to end standoff and free hostages
December 30, 1997
Prison aerial view
Web posted at: 8:36 p.m. EST (0136 GMT)SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) -- Prison officials say inmates holding more than 600 hostages at a prison promised to release the hostages and end their two-day standoff on Wednesday in exchange for transfers to other prisons.
After the rioting inmates at the Sorocaba Prison abandoned their demands for an armored car, weapons and ammunition, they agreed to be transferred to other, less crowded prisons, officials said.
Radio reports said a bus was parked outside the prison to transfer between 11 and 15 prisoners.
"The prisoners have promised to release all their hostages," said Police Col. Jairo Paes De Lima. "We are now in a wait-and-see situation, hoping the prisoners will keep their word. If they do, they will be sent to other prisons."
The standoff began during visiting hours Sunday. A group of about 15 inmates took control of the prison, located 56 miles west of Sao Paulo, after reportedly trying to escape dressed in women's clothes. A shootout erupted when guards recognized the prisoners, and one inmate and a woman visiting her jailed husband were killed.
Radio reports said the woman had smuggled the clothing into the prison along with five guns and an undetermined number of grenades that the inmates tied to the hostages' feet.
The roof of the prison The inmates originally seized 716 hostages -- 17 guards and 699 relatives of prisoners. They later released 78 relatives.
Selma Giron, a prison official, said the inmates tortured some of the guards being held hostage in an attempt to pressure authorities to let them escape.
Citing reports from other guards who witnessed the beatings, Giron said the inmates hanged the guards by their ankles and beat them with knives, sticks and iron bars. Relatives of prisoners being held as hostages were reportedly not mistreated.
Other authorities could not confirm the reports that guards were beaten. Military Police Lt. Fabio Hingst said negotiators saw no signs that the 17 prison workers had been beaten.
"As far as we know, the prisoners have been treated well enough. The relatives have plenty to eat and the kids have been playing soccer and bathing in the swimming pool," Hingst said.
About 200 relatives, mostly women, have waited outside, many sleeping in front of the prison gates since Sunday. Twenty men, all friends and relatives of the hostages, offered themselves in exchange for about 200 children being held inside the prison.
The crowd outside the prison was gripped by panic when about 100 heavily-armed riot troopers arrived. Many of the relatives -- fearing violence if the prison was raided -- laid down on the ground to prevent the troopers from entering, forcing their retreat, Giron said.
The Sorocaba Prison houses about 900 inmates, although it has a capacity for 500. Prison uprisings are common in Brazil because of massive overcrowding and because inmates often have to wait years for a trial.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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