Hundreds of inmates including terrorist convicts clashed with guards in a failed attempt to break out of a high-security prison in Kabul and then took control of parts of the facility, officials said yesterday.
Abdul Salaam Bakshi, chief of prisons in Afghanistan, said that guards had been forced out of a block of Policharki Prison, housing 1,300 inmates including al-Qaeda and Taliban convicts, on Saturday night.
Mohammed Qasim Hashimzai, deputy justice minister, said some inmates had been injured but prisoners had refused an offer for them to be treated.
He said some inmates were still trying to escape, and about 100 of them had taken control of a women's wing of the prison.
Reporters outside Policharki heard a short burst of gunfire yesterday morning. A few minutes later, an ambulance carrying an unidentified patient drove out of the prison.
Baskhi said police were surrounding the prison and no inmates had escaped.
"All the problem is inside the prison. It's 1,300 people. We want to peacefully solve this problem," he said, accusing the al-Qaeda and Taliban inmates of inciting other inmates.
A justice ministry delegation was visiting the prison on the outskirts of the Afghan capital yesterday morning to negotiate with the prisoners.
"They have demands, we are going to listen to what they want," Hashimzai said.
"If we cannot solve it that through negotiations, we have our own options," he added, but refused to say if that meant using force.
He said the trouble started when hundreds of inmates tried to break out on Saturday night from Block 2 of the prison -- which houses various criminals and some 350 Taliban, convicted militants among them.
Bakshi said the inmates had attacked guards and tried to force their way out of their prison block but were stopped. He said the inmates had small knives and clubs fashioned from wrecked furniture but none were armed. They had also set fire to bedding.
No guards were hurt in the clash, he said.
Policharki has suffered break-outs and riots before.
In December 2004, four inmates and four guards died during a 10-hour standoff that started when some inmates from al-Qaeda used razors to wrest some guns from guards and then tried to break out. Afghan troops stormed the prison and fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades to retake control.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS