Inmate beheaded in Brazil prison riot

"Around 9.30 am (1130 GMT), inmates took a nurse and one other prison worker hostage with makeshift weapons of metal or wood and then began opening all the cells," said military police spokeswoman Elida Goncalves. The hostages had been released unharmed by Thursday afternoon.

"Four inmates have been killed in the riot. One was beheaded, another bludgeoned to death and a third stabbed repeatedly. All three were then set ablaze," she said, adding the cause of the fourth inmate’s death was unknown.

She said that the man’s head had been cut off with makeshift knives used by the rioting inmates.

Goncalves said the reason for the uprising was not yet known, but serious overcrowding at Brazil’s jails is the most common factor sparking the country’s frequent prison riots. Human rights groups have slammed Brazil’s prisons for their awful conditions.

The prison, in the city of Uberlandia, 375 km South of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, houses 275 inmates.