Inmates end four-day uprising and release 207 hostages

Rebellious inmates at a &to=http://english.pravda.ru/world/2001/02/21/2634.html' target=_blank>prison in Brazil's remote Amazon jungle ended a four-day uprising and released their 207 hostages Wednesday after authorities met their principal demand by returning one of their leaders from another prison.

Armed with makeshift knives, the inmates began their uprising during Sunday's visiting hours at the Urso Branco State Prison in Rondonia's state capital, Porto Velho, 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo.

The 190 women and 17 men held hostage were relatives of the inmates.

"It's over," Renato Eduardo de Souza, head of the state's public safety department, said by telephone. "The inmates have released the hostages and no one was hurt. No one was killed."

He said prisoners' claims that they had killed up to 16 fellow inmates during the uprising "was nothing more than a bluff to intimidate us."