Update — August 7: One of the inmates injured in Thursday night’s unrest has died while receiving hospital treatment, the Daily Mirror reported. Eleven inmates were hurt in total, and nine have since been transferred to Boossa Prison. Details below.

Police brought a disturbance at the Magazine Prison in Borella under control late on Thursday night, after a group of inmates in the facility’s ‘E’ ward left the ward and behaved in a disorderly manner.

Police Media Spokesperson ASP F.U. Wootler told Hiru News the unrest had been contained. Special Task Force officers secured the area outside the prison, he said.

What happened

The trouble began at around 10.20 p.m., when inmates held in the ‘E’ ward forced their way out of the ward and began behaving in a riotous and disorderly manner, Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror reported. About 40 people were involved, according to Hiru News.

The cause was reported to be a dispute over illicit drugs among the inmates.

Police, the Police Riot Control Unit and the Special Task Force were called to the scene, and security was tightened inside the prison and around its perimeter. Police said the situation had been brought under control and that security within the prison premises had been assured.

The Police Media Division confirmed to Hiru News, while the disturbance was still in progress, that an incident had been reported and that an investigation had begun.

One dead, 11 injured

Eleven inmates were injured in the disturbance and admitted for treatment, Prisons Spokesperson Commissioner A.C. Gajanayake told the Daily Mirror. One of them later died of his injuries in hospital.

Nine of the injured inmates have been transferred to Boossa Prison. Security at New Magazine was strengthened afterwards with the deployment of police, the Special Task Force and the armed forces.

Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Parliament that about 40 inmates broke out of a ward; the Department of Prisons told NewsFirst that around 50 were involved in disorderly behaviour near one of the prison gates. NewsFirst reported that the confrontation, between groups of inmates from two wards, may have been linked to an attempt to reach a parcel of narcotics thrown into the prison grounds.

Acting Commissioner General of Prisons Hemantha Prasad said several computers and other pieces of equipment were damaged during the unrest.

The dead inmate identified

The inmate who died has been named as Mohamed Asman Sherifdeen, 35, of Katuwana, Homagama, Ada Derana reported.

He was facing charges over several murders, including a double homicide on Watarappala Road in Mount Lavinia and a further double murder in Negombo. Authorities said he was allegedly involved as a contract shooter for the organised crime figure known as “Homagama Handaya”, with cases pending before courts in Galle, Ampara, Negombo and Homagama. He had also initially been suspected as the gunman in the murder of “Ganemulla Sanjeewa”.

Ada Derana’s account of the disturbance largely matches earlier reporting: prison officers seized a parcel of heroin thrown into the grounds from outside, a group of inmates then threatened officers, and around 45 broke out of a cell and entered the prison grounds. That figure sits between the roughly 40 cited by Minister Wijepala and the approximately 50 given by the Department of Prisons, and is another outlet’s estimate rather than a revision.

Police said most of those involved were associates of the gang figure “Kos Malli”. The Prisons Department said 10 injured inmates were admitted to the prison hospital, and that nine inmates alleged to have orchestrated the unrest were transferred to another prison. A special investigation has been launched.

A sensitive moment for the prison system

The incident comes while the prison service remains under scrutiny following the Negombo Prison riot in July, in which 28 inmates died. Four suspects were remanded over that unrest, and the chief jailer’s testimony was sealed by the committee investigating it.

Magazine Prison itself has been the subject of a separate custodial-death investigation, in which a jailer and prison guards were arrested over the death of an inmate. That case is unconnected to Thursday’s disturbance.

Magazine Prison was the second of four facilities to report unrest in roughly 36 hours, after Negombo and before Kuruwita and Pallansena. Wijepala told Parliament that intelligence reports have raised suspicions the incidents may be organised and coordinated.

This is a developing story.

Sources: Ada Derana, Ada Derana, Hiru News, Hiru News, Daily Mirror, Daily Mirror, Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, Ada Derana.