Prison guard killed by axe and 11 inmates dead in riot over drug lord's transfer

20 December 2023 , 19:14

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A relative of an inmate of the Tacumbu prison cries while policemen transport inmates to other prisons (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

A police officer was killed by an axe plus eleven inmates died in a stand-off at a jail in Paraguay on Monday.

Some 2,200 police and soldiers entered the Tacumbú prison, in the Paraguayan capital, on Monday and with gunshots and tear gas they managed to regain control of the prison that was taken over by the criminal group Clan Rotela. In the operation, they extracted the drug trafficking leader of the group, Armando Rotela, who is serving a 27-year sentence.

Police said Rotela controlled a part of the jail dubbed The Jungle, where he ran a small supermarket. Police commissioner Nimio Cardozo said it had taken over 2,000 soldiers and police officers to regain control of the prison and that one policeman had died from a bullet wound to the head and another was seriously injured. He said about 700 inmates, including Rotela himself, had been relocated to other prisons. Officers also seized three pit bulls and several fighting cockerels, the BBC reported.

Policemen stand guard outside the Tacumbu prison to impede the entrance to the relatives of inmates (AFP via Getty Images)

President Santiago Peña described the operation as "historic" and maintained that the fight against organized crime in Paraguay's prisons will not be easy or short. He said in a message from the presidential house: "Enough of privileges, enough of complicity and lack of control. But above all, a model that turned prisons into true schools of crime is enough."

In October, more than 20 prison guards were held hostage by the inmates, who demanded that the government drop its plans to transfer members of the Rotela Clan. New President Sebastián Peña has promised to break up the group, but security analysts fear that moving the leader may spread the power of the Rotela Clan rather than weaken it.

The US has imposed sanctions on a Paraguayan tobacco company connected to Cartes

View of the smoke after inmates of the Tacumbu prison set it on fire (AFP via Getty Images)

According to Cardozo, to avoid being caught, Rotela occupied an area of the prison intended for religious practice and tried to take a pregnant woman hostage. Another 600 inmates were also extracted "as a way of decompressing overpopulation", the colonel told The Associated Press. The Tacumbú prison houses around 3,000 inmates although its capacity is 1,000. Overpopulation and overcrowded conditions were shown in the Netflix series "The Toughest Prisons in the World."

The Ministry of Justice reported that the "eradication of the privileges and powers of criminal gangs in the operation of this prison, a better distribution of inmates and the institutional and effective presence of the State in a territory partially kidnapped by criminality for years were achieved."

Rachel Hagan