Inmate beheaded in Brazil riot, hostages freed

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, June 19 (Reuters) At least two inmates died and one of the bodies was beheaded in a three-day prison riot in Brazil that ended today with the release of more than 250 hostages, security officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Espirito Santo state security secretariat said authorities negotiated the release of the hostages without giving in to the demands of the riot leaders in the Viana maximum-security prison. It was the third prison riot in the state in the past few days.

The prisoners demanded that drug-gang kingpins, who are isolated in a federal police detention center, be transferred back to the prisons where they were initially sent to serve their sentences.

''There was no pact, no conditions were met,'' said the spokeswoman. Eighty troops from the National Public Security Force also arrived in the state to help contain prison rebellions, she added.

In two other riots in coastal Espirito Santo that started last week, one prisoner was killed and more than 50 people were taken hostage, then released over the weekend.

In Viana, some 500 km north of Rio de Janeiro, inmates took over 250 visitors and a prison guard hostage on Saturday. Nearly all of the hostages were women and children who had been visiting prisoners.

The inmates had tied the guard to a gas bottle, threatening to blow it up if police stormed the prison.

Yesterday, rioting inmates displayed two bodies, one of them beheaded, on the wall next to a watchtower, authorities said. The Globo news agency said a third inmate was slain on Monday, but the spokeswoman would not confirm that.

The prison, built for 532 inmates, houses 711 prisoners.

Security officials are wary of a repeat of last month's wave of gang violence that swept the state of Sao Paulo. A powerful drug gang unleashed the bloodshed in retaliation for the transfer of its leaders to a remote prison.

Prison riots, attacks on police and residents of South America's biggest megalopolis and consecutive police retaliation killed nearly 200 people in mid-May.

REUTERS PDS BST0210