Deadly prison fire survivors claim it was set in revenge - Honduras

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AP , SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS
Thursday, May 20, 2004,Page 7

Survivors of a deadly prison fire that officials have attributed to a short-circuit say the inferno was intentionally set -- an accusation likely to further enrage gangs already fighting a vicious battle against the government.

For some members of the Mara Salvatrucha-13, Monday's fire in a 20m by 10m cell block housing 186 gangsters was part of a long-term strategy of extermination that began with last year's federal anti-gang law.

"Wearing a tattoo doesn't deserve a death sentence," said MS-13 member Olmon Alberto Contreras, 18, who lay with severe burns in a bed at the San Pedro hospital. "Many of the guys who died in there were in jail just because they had tattoos," he said, referring to the saints, skulls, dagger and dice most stencil across their bodies.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/20/2003156242