Daily Star - Angry inmates take seven guards hostage during fiery riot at Roumieh, April 25, 2008

Prisoners rioted at Lebanon's Roumieh prison on Thursday, taking seven security personnel hostage and setting cells on fire, but mediators appeared to have negotiated a peaceful end to the crisis as The Daily Star went to press. A well-informed security source told The Daily Star late Thursday that negotiations were under way between Police Brigadier Antoine Shakhour, Military Magistrate Jean Fahed and an unknown number of prisoners at the Roumieh prison. The source said the two parties had reached an agreement in which the prisoners would return to their cells and the abducted personnel would be released shortly before midnight.
Security sources said that the riot began with a quarrel on Thursday afternoon between prison guard Suleiman Suleiman and Palestinian inmate Youssef Shaaban, who is serving a life sentence for his role in assassinating a Jordanian diplomat in Beirut in 1994.
The quarrel developed into a physical altercation and soon spread when a few Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners intervened on Shaaban's side. The prisoners then managed to abduct seven warders in circumstances that remained unclear.
Some security sources said the quarrel erupted while the unarmed warders were serving dinner to the prisoners.
The riot then spread, with some prisoners setting cells on fire, the sources added.
Civil Defense managed to get the blazes under control within 30 minutes.
A special unit of the Internal Security Forces reportedly managed to force its way into the prison and, using tear gas, surrounded the rioting prisoners from all directions.
But security sources said that the force was hesitant to engage the prisoners as its main aim was to secure the release of the abducted security personnel without inflicting casualties among the prisoners.
Security sources said the prisoners were demanding a reduction of their sentences, as well as an improvement in living conditions at the prison.
The sources said the disturbances did not affect the remand section of the prison, a separate building that houses high-security detainees, including suspected Fatah al-Islam members and the four former security chiefs detained over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The last major riot at Roumieh prison occurred in 2004, when prisoners arrested during the Dinniyeh clashes in North Lebanon in 2000 rebelled in protest over the conditions in their cells.
The Dinniyeh prisoners were arrested after they had launched a failed attempt to create an Islamist mini-state in the North and clashed with the Lebanese Army. They were later released under an amnesty law passed by the Parliament in 2005.
Roumieh prison, located about 10 kilometers northeast of Beirut, is known to be extremely overcrowded. Several local and international NGOs have been working to address the harsh living conditions at the jail, but none has achieved success so far.