Caracas, Venezuela – One inmate was killed and nine others wounded in a grenade explosion during a turf battle between rival factions at a prison in central Venezuela, authorities said Friday.
The incident took place Thursday night at Tocoron penitentiary in Miranda state, according to warden Eduardo Bracho.
A search conducted after the clash turned up “two (more) grenades and a great quantity” of homemade knives known in Venezuela as “chuzos,” Bracho told local media, which reported separately that authorities thwarted an escape attempt by six Tocoron inmates earlier Thursday.
The grenade incident comes a week after inmates at more than a dozen Venezuelan prisons ended a hunger strike mounted to protest the protracted nature of court proceedings.
Many attribute the high level of violence in Venezuelan penitentiaries to the overcrowding that results from defendants’ being forced to spend months – or even years – behind bars awaiting trial.
An independent watchdog group, the Prisons Observatory, said 177 inmates died violently during the first four months of this year and that 244 others were injured.
For all of 2005, the group said, the toll from violence in Venezuela’s prisons was 327 dead and 655 wounded.
