Six heavily armed inmates who held their warden and a guard hostage at a prison in Taiwan have committed suicide after a dramatic 14-hour siege. The prisoners had broken into the prison's armory and seized a number of weapons, including rifles, handguns and more than 200 bullets,The six inmates all worked in the sewing factory and would have had access to scissors, the ministry said. The inmates pretended to be sick and went to the prison infirmary. While there, they grabbed the keys from prison staff but were unable to break out of the prison. They smashed their way into a room storing the prison's weapons instead.
The inmates, who were serving a range of sentences for crimes including murder, complained about their sentences, mistreatment at the jail, and the recent release of former President Chen Shui-bian on medical grounds, according to Taiwanese media reports. He was serving a 20-year sentence for corruption.