Monterrey, Mexico, Feb 22 (EFE).- A Federal Police operation to transfer inmates from the state penitentiary in the northern Mexican city of Apodaca, where 44 prisoners were killed last weekend in a brutal fight and 30 others escaped, sparked protests both inside and outside the correctional facility.
Inmates' relatives staged protests Tuesday after they heard gunshots inside the prison, located in Nuevo Leon state, and observed a column of smoke rising from one of its towers.
The protests were triggered by an operation in which some 300 Federal Police officers transferred inmates from Apodaca to prisons located outside the state and operated by the central government, Nuevo Leon Security Council spokesman Jorge Domene said.
State officials do not know how many inmates held on federal offenses will be transferred because the federal Government Secretariat ordered the operation, Domene said.
Smoke was visible Tuesday after inmates set fire to several mattresses inside the prison, which has since been brought under control, the state security spokesman said.
Some 80 women assembled outside the penitentiary also joined in the protest, expressing their displeasure by shouting, throwing stones and burning garbage at the main entrance to the prison.
Domene said the warden, deputy warden, security chief and at least 16 guards at the prison in Apodaca - a suburb of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon's capital - were complicit in the prison fight and breakout early Sunday.
The 30 fugitives are members of the Los Zetas cartel - including its leader in the northern city of Monterrey, arrested last year - while all of the people killed in the fight, who were stabbed with sharp objects, stoned or bludgeoned to death with metal bars, are believed to have belonged to the rival Gulf mob.
The prison was plagued by overcrowding and most of the escaped prisoners, 25, were behind bars for "federal offenses," including organized crime and drug trafficking, while the remaining five were being held for violations of state law, Nuevo Leon Gov. Rodrigo Medina said Monday.
The Zetas, a band of special forces deserters turned outlaws, spent years as the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel before going into business for themselves.
A turf war between those two drug cartels and clashes pitting criminals against the security forces claimed some 2,000 lives in Nuevo Leon last year.
Sunday's fight produced the largest death toll from an incident of this type in the past few years in Mexico.
A fight last month at a prison in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas left 31 inmates dead.
A fire apparently caused by a short-circuit at the prison in Apodaca left 14 inmates dead and 35 others injured on May 20.
