Jailhouse rock! Booze and live music in Peruvian prison

AFP FILE PHOTO

LIMA—The head of a Peruvian maximum security prison was fired Monday after video footage showed jubilant inmates drinking and dancing to live music with outside guests in a prison patio.

The November 10 party was to celebrate the birthday of Julio Rubio Roldan, who is serving time at the Miguel Castro Castro prison, according to America TV, which aired the footage late Sunday.

The video shows guests, including women and children, dancing and mingling with the inmates.

Two cumbia bands equipped with electronic keyboards, drums and concert-sized speakers provide the live music.

Rubio dances, laughs, drinks whiskey, takes a phone call and accepts a birthday cake in the video. The crowd sings along when one of the bands plays “Happy Birthday.”

Castro Castro prison warden Jose Luis Mendoza and all of the guards on duty the day of the party were fired, said Julio Magan, head of Peru’s prison system.

“These are corrupt, mafia-type personnel,” Magan said on Monday. “This is a scandal that we are not going to allow.”

The inmates involved in organizing the party were also transferred to other prisons, Magan said.

A furious Prime Minister Juan Jimenez said he expected “more drastic sanctions,” including criminal charges against the prison staff for allowing the party.

The Castro Castro prison was built in the 1980s to jail men sentenced for crimes like murder and rape. Rubio is on the 14th year of a 20-year prison sentence for kidnapping.

Not at the party: Joran Van der Sloot, 25, who was initially jailed at Castro Castro in 2010 when he was charged and later found guilty of murdering a Peruvian woman. Van der Sloot was later transferred to the Lurigancho prison, also near Lima.