Turkish troops on yesterday regained control of the last jail where hundreds of inmates had been holding out against a nationwide prison crackdown in which at least 26 people have died.
"Operation Return to Life is essentially over," Justice Minister Mr Hikmet Sami Turk said. "Resistance ended about 30 minutes ago at Umraniye, the prison that was resisting. All convicts and detainees have surrendered.
"Four people died (at Umraniye yesterday) including those who were shot after they poured petrol on themselves and ran towards security forces on fire," he said. Witnesses at Istanbul's Haydarpasa hospital said 18 ambulances carrying more than 30 men and women from Umraniye jail had drawn up outside the emergency wing. Most of the convicts were walking but a few came in on stretchers. "Long live our death fasts!" some shouted as they entered.
The crackdown on 20 prisons nationwide was started on Tuesday to end hunger strikes and establish closer state control of unruly prisons with a sweeping reform programme. Mr Turk said 24 inmates and two paramilitary police officers had now died since Tuesday.
Journalists allowed into Istanbul's Bayrampasa prison, where at least 12 prisoners died early in the crackdown, saw the slogan "A history written in blood cannot be erased" painted on one wall of the dormitory block housing left-wing inmates. In one ward, fires had scorched the paint from 50 bunk beds.
Officials displayed an arsenal of home-made weaponry they said the prisoners had used, including flame-throwers made from kitchen gas canisters, crossbows, makeshift rifles, swords and home-made gas masks.
At Umraniye, black smoke was seen rising from the complex yesterday morning. Troops backed by bulldozers surrounded the jail and combined a teargas barrage with loudspeaker calls to surrender.
Little was revealed about the final storming of the prison, before which security forces opened holes in the roofs of several of the prison blocks, which stand isolated on a bleak and snowy hilltop on the eastern outskirts of Istanbul.
Mr Turk said the ensuing operation against prisoners said to be armed with makeshift flame-throwers had taken place "with the minimum possible losses".
The nationwide crackdown began on Tuesday when troops stormed prisons to end a two-month hunger strike by inmates protesting against plans to move them from large wards to small cells, which they say will expose them to abuse by jailers. The government says the change is needed to break the hold of leftwing groups, crime gangs, radical Islamists and Kurdish separatists who effectively control their own dormitories.
Human rights groups say the raids have failed to end the hunger strikes, during which some prisoners have consumed nothing but sugared water for over 60 days. Officials acknowledged that many of the 800 inmates taken to hospital or moved to other jails after their prisons were raided were still refusing food. Turkey's President on Thursday bowed to pressure from within the government and approved a controversial amnesty that may halve the prison population, freeing common criminals but leaving many political prisoners behind bars.