13 DEAD IN GUATEMALAN PRISON RIOT

Argentinian model who was visiting the prison is among 13 dead in riot in which four were decapitated after grenade was thrown at gang kingpin

By Gareth Davies

Daily Mail
July 20, 2016

A stunning model was one of 13 people killed in a Guatemalan prison riot in which four people were decapitated.

The free-for-all claimed the life of Argentinian beauty Joanna Birriel, 24, as well as the Pavon jail in Guatemala City's most influential prisoners Bryon Lima, who she is understood to have been meeting.

She was caught up in gang violence when a fellow inmate threw a hand grenade at Lima, imprisoned for the murder of a bishop bludgeoned to death with a concrete block in 1998, and supporters protecting him attacked their rivals with guns leaving 12 inmates dead in total.

It was known an Argentine woman visitor had been killed, but her identity only emerged on Tuesday.

Officials said she used to visit former army captain Bryon Lima once a month.

Prosecutors claim he built a multimillion pound illegal prison empire based on threats and corruption.

Byron's brother Luis Alberto said the model, who moved to Guatemala with an Argentinian boyfriend she later broke up with, had worked for them as an advisor for a bio-health park company.

Joanna, who was born in the north-eastern Argentinian province of Misiones, was initially identified by local press as Bryon Lima's girlfriend in what is thought to have been an error.

Her current boyfriend, an agronomist, is also said to have worked alongside her.

It has not yet been revealed how she was killed, although four of the dead were decapitated.

The riot occurred on Monday at Granja Pavon Prison, 12 miles south east of the Guatemalan capital Guatemala City.

Officials have blamed the violence on feuding between Byron Lima's gang and a rival gang led by drugs trafficker Marvin Montiel Marin, sentenced to 820 years in jail for the 2008 murders of 15 Nicaraguans and a Dutchman on a bus said to be carrying cocaine.

Bryon Lima's lawyer said he had reports from prison inmates that his client had recently forbidden a rival gang from selling drugs in the prison where he was serving his sentence for the bishop's murder.