Six Inmates in Taiwan Hostage Standoff Commit Suicide

Six prisoners at a Taiwan jail committed suicide Thursday, ending an all-night standoff after they took the prison warden and other staff hostage to complain about "unfair trials" and demand their freedom, officials said.

The prisoners shot themselves inside Kaohsiung city prison -- one of the biggest jails on the island -- in the early morning, the justice ministry said, adding that the hostages were released unharmed.

"The police and prosecutors on the scene tried to persuade them to surrender and not to take their lives but they would not listen. We regret that they committed suicide," said deputy justice minister Chen Ming-tang.

The ministry said negotiations with the six prisoners ran through the night, but did not say what prompted them to kill themselves. Prosecutors said the six had communicated their desire to commit suicide from the start of the stand-off.

According to Chen, the inmates fired several shots in the air before releasing a senior staffer around 3:10 am (1930 GMT Wednesday).

Two hours later, four prisoners killed themselves and the warden, the only remaining hostage, was released. The final two prisoners committed suicide around 20 minutes later.

The 14-hour standoff began Wednesday when the inmates -- jailed for a variety of crimes including murder, robbery and drugs offenses -- broke into a weapons storage room, obtained four rifles and six handguns, and initially took three staff hostage.

They later agreed to release them in exchange for the prison chief and a senior staffer, the justice ministry said.

Television images showed police armed with rifles and protective gear surrounding the prison. A senior Kaohsiung policeman said more than 250 officers had been mobilized.

Prosecutor Chen Chun-hsiu, who led the hostage negotiations, said the inmates knew they would spend the rest of their lives in prison and had intended to kill themselves all along.

"They had expressed their determination to die from the beginning of our communication... they felt that they were not given fair trials and they doubted whether they would ever be released from prison. They were determined a long time ago to end the protest with their deaths," he told reporters.

He described the prisoners as "emotionally unstable".

"The warden seemed not afraid, trying to keep them calm so as to allow more time for negotiations," Chen said.

President Ma Ying-jeou said all jails would be on high alert while authorities reviewed management procedures to examine loopholes exposed by the incident.

However, while condemning the prisoners' actions, he said that he "deeply regretted" that they took their lives.

The leader of the six was identified by police as Cheng Li-teh, a top member of a notorious triad group known as the Bamboo Union Gang who had been behind bars since August 2012. He had been sentenced to a total of 28 years in prison, 18 of which were due to a murder conviction.

"Cheng was angry, insisting he had not murdered people but was sentenced to 18 years in jail," Lee Rong-tsung, a former Kaohsiung City Council member who reportedly knew Cheng, said.

Cheng wrote a statement during the stand-off which he gave to Lee that he wanted to be read to the media as part of his conditions for releasing hostage.

In the statement, read out by a justice ministry official, he complained that Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian -- who was sentenced to 20 years for graft -- was given parole for medical treatment last month.

"Chen Shui-bian was an inmate too, but why was he paroled and described as a political prisoner?" Cheng asked, according to the statement.

Chen Ming-tang, the deputy justice minister, dismissed criticisms that the authorities bowed to the prisoners' requests by reading their demands on television.

"We had to calm the suspects during the negotiations for the safety of the hostages," he said.

The justice ministry is scheduled to release a report into the incident on Friday.