Venezuela retakes prison after deadliest-ever riot

CARACAS—Venezuela has finally succeeding in retaking a notorious prison from the control of inmates, quelling a month-long uprising that was the bloodiest in the country’s history, officials said Wednesday.

“Today, we are happy to report that we have put an end to the riot at the El Rodeo prison, where almost 1,000 inmates held us at bay for almost a month and where some 30 prisoners died,” said Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami.

“Happily, we have resolved the crisis peacefully,” he said, adding that inmates at the facility were now “safe, sound and in custody.”

The government said that a group of heavily armed inmates were responsible for the takeover, holding the other inmates hostage and preventing them from turning themselves in.

Officials said that the mutineers were armed with guns and even grenades, explaining the difficulty in seizing the facility from their control.

As with much of the rest of Latin America, Venezuela suffers from a serious prison violence and crowding problem.

The country’s prisons, built to hold some 14,000 inmates, currently hold about 50,000, officials said.

President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday praised prison authorities’ success in finally retaking the facility.

“It is an example of the supreme respect for human rights,” Chavez declared on Twitter, adding, however, that the very fact of the riot presented what he called “an enormous self-criticism.”