Mumbai bombings: a bizarre twist

A chapter has closed in a strange story on the fringes of the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 1993 which left 257 people dead. The Bollywood star, Sanjay Dutt, aged 56, has been released from prison after serving 5 years for buying guns from the terrorists.

Dutt’s defence was that he had needed the weapons to protect his family during riots in which Muslims fought Hindus.

The son of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother, he was one of India’s most popular stars, specialising in tough anti-hero roles. Sentencing him at his trial, the judge said: ‘Don’t get perturbed. You have many years to go and work like the Mackenna’s Gold actor Gregory Peck.’

A hundred people were convicted for their role in the bombings, with 12 given the death penalty and 20 others sentenced to life imprisonment.  For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

'Homeland' comes true! How Pakistan handles top terror suspects

It sounds like a plot line out of Homeland. One of the main suspects alleged to be behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 which killed more than 160 people, is said to be living a life of luxury in a Pakistan prison, with internet and mobile phone access, and dozens of visitors popping in and out every day, without anyone bothering to check who they are.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi is being held with six of his comrades at the Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi. After being named by Indian officials, he was arrested at what was said to be a training camp for the militant, some would say terrorist, group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In 2014, after doubts were raised over the Indian evidence, he was released on bail – embarrassingly, barely a day after the worst terrorist outrage in Pakistan’s history when Islamic fanatics murdered 145 people, including 132 children, at a school in Peshawar. The Pakistan military and civilian authorities had responded by calling for a crackdown on ‘all shades of terrorism’.

India protested, while the US and China are also said to have put on pressure, and the Pakistan government detained Lakhvi again under the Maintenance of Public Order law. But if the authorities believe he is a threat, the ‘anything goes’ prison regime seems an odd way of trying to protect Pakistanis.

Earthquake forecasts - get it wrong, go to gaol

‘Never make predictions,’ said Sam Goldwyn, ‘especially about the future.’  In April 2009, an earthquake devastated the medieval Italian town of L'Aquila, killing more than 300 people.   This week, seven scientists were sentenced to prison terms for failing to foretell it.

The group were all members of  the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Serious Risks.   Before the disaster, there had been a number of tremors in the area, but they told officials that, although a major earthquake was possible, it was not likely. 

In court, it was said that following their assessment, many people stayed in their homes and perished, while others who decided to remain outside in the street survived.    The experts were accused of providing ‘inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory’ information.

All of them are appealing, and remain free for the moment.     The head of the commission and his deputy have both resigned in protest, saying the verdict puts scientists in an impossible position.    More than 5,000 of their colleagues have sent an open letter to the president, supporting the convicted men. 

Brazil - prison riot anniversary

In Sao Paulo, hundreds of people have been marking the 20^th anniversary of a prison massacre in which 111 inmates at the Carandiru gaol were killed. 

The establishment held 10,000 prisoners in 1992, when a riot began with a row between two prisoners over a football match.  It soon developed into a fight between rival gangs.  When police tried to restore order, critics accuse them of killing indiscriminately as they shot prisoners at point- blank range.

Some inmates were said to have been killed by police dogs, and an evangelical pastor described his own escape as a miracle.     The commander of the raid was convicted for using excessive force in 2001, but acquitted on appeal five years later.    Soon after he was found dead in his flat.   

Now dozens more police are due to face charges relating to the operation, though officers have always claimed they were obeying orders.    Carandiru was closed and demolished in 2002, but Brazil still has half a million people in prison, the fourth biggest total in the world.

Libya's secret disaster history

It is sixteen years since more than 1,250 inmates were gunned down at Abu Salim gaol in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, but this is the first time the Libyan people have been able to mark the anniversary.

The prisoners were killed on June 28 and 29, 1996 for protesting to demand better conditions.   Colonel Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, Abdullah al-Senussi, who is now under arrest, is accused of ordering the massacre.

While the Gaddafi regime was in power, victims’ families did not dare mark the anniversary, but now the prison has been turned into a museum where visitors can seen pictures of those killed, secret notes written by inmates and other objects from the notorious history of Abu Salim, where some were held for many years.

Although many old scores are being settled by the gun in post-revolutionary Libya, the judiciary has started prosecuting members of the former government.   Mr Senussi, is wanted by the International Criminal Court, but is currently being held by the Mauritanian authorities who have charged him with entering the country illegally.

Another prison fire

Thirteen prisoners have been killed in a fire in a gaol in south-east Turkey’s Sanliurfa province.    Another five have been injured.

According to some reports, prisoners set fire to their bedding in a protest, though this has been denied by the governor.    It took firefighters an hour and a half to put the blaze out.   An MP from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party was among the prison’s inmates, but is not believed to have been hurt.

This year saw what was probably the deadliest prison fire in history at the Comayagua Penitentiary in Honduras, where 360 people were killed in February including inmates’ spouses on conjugal visits.

The cause of the Honduras fire is still unclear, with the authorities talking about an electrical fault while some survivors said an inmate started it.   Critics complained that Comayagua was overcrowded.

Honduras prison fire was accident

The death toll in the Honduras prison fire has now reached 359, making this probably the most disastrous prison fire in history.    Preliminary inquiries suggest that it was an accident caused by a cigarette.   Initial reports that the blaze was started deliberately are now being dismissed.

American inspectors say the gaol was overcrowded and that it contained too much inflammable material.   Relatives who stormed the morgue where the bodies of their loved ones were being held, claim to have seen evidence of bullet wounds, though the authorities have denied that any prisoners were shot.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, but many of the prisoners at Comayagua had not been convicted and were awaiting trial.   Last year the US State Department said that many inmates in Honduras’s gaols suffered from malnutrition.

This is the third major prison fire in the country in just 9 years    In 2003, 70 inmates were killed at another prison, and in 2004 the death toll was more than 100 at a third.    Human Rights Watch say that following the fires: ‘everybody feels pretty sorry for a few days.’    Then presumably the feeling passes.

Honduras prison fire worst ever?

Perhaps the deadliest prison fire in history has claimed the lives of at least 300 inmates at Comayagua in Honduras.    A further 56 of the 853 prisoners are still missing.

The fire broke out late on Tuesday night, and it took more than an hour before it was brought under control.  The cause is still unknown.  Dozens of prisoners died trapped in their cells while police fired tear gas at relatives who tried to force their way in. 

Firefighters say they were unable to free inmates because they did not have keys to their cells and they could not find the guards who did.  The Honduran President has promised a 'full and transparent' investigation.

The disaster looks set to become the deadliest prison fire ever.    The worst until now happened in America’s Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus, where more than 320 inmates were killed in 1930.

(see also my blog of Dec 9, 2010)

Chile prison fire

A fire in a Chilean prison has killed more than 80 inmates. The blaze at the San Miguel prison in Santiago is reported to have been started when mattresses were set on fire during a fight between rival gangs.

The blaze is the worst ever in a Chilean prison. More than 5,000 people gathered outside the gaol, and many complained they could get no information about the fate of their loved ones. There were also reports that prison guards at first refused to let in firefighters.

Chile has one of the highest per capita prison populations in Latin America, and the San Miguel gaol was grossly overcrowded. Built for 700, it was holding nearly 2,000. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera described the system as ‘inhumane’ and called for reform.

Overcrowding was also a factor in perhaps the worst ever prison fire, which swept through the Ohio State Penitentiary in the USA on April 21, 1930. The prison should have held 1,500 inmates, but 4,300 were packed inside, and more than 320 died. The following year Ohio set up a parole board that eventually released thousands of prisoners.

Disasters and disorder

Haiti could be a pretty lawless place at the best of times. The aftermath of the earthquake is not the best of times. At first it seemed survivors were helping themselves to food and water wherever they could find them, and you couldn’t blame them.

Now, though, looting has become much more widespread with organised criminal gangs beginning to take charge. Following the quake, an estimated 4,500 prisoners escaped from the country’s main gaol – among them drug barons and gang bosses.

Disorder, of course, is not unusual after a major disaster. During the Sicily earthquake of 1908 (see my blog of January 16), the walls of Messina prison collapsed and those inmates who were not killed or injured just walked out. Normally law-abiding folk grabbed what they needed to survive wherever they could, but others pillaged shops and warehouses or rifled corpses, while two men were shot dead trying to rob a bank.

After the Lisbon quake of 1755, the authorities hanged thirty looters in prominent places around the city. And following America’s Johnstown flood of 1885, a number of “marauders” were summarily executed, because “the people in the solemn earnestness of their work of succour and rescue [had] not the patience to wait the tedious process of law.”