Brazil massacre police jailed for life

Twenty-five police have been given life sentences for their part in the 1992 massacre in Sao Paulo's Carandiru jail which left 111 prisoners dead. Each police officer was sentenced to 624 years for the deaths of 52 inmates. The verdicts come in the second of four stages of the trial involving different floors of the prison. Twenty-three officers were given life sentences in the first stage of sentencing in April. The defense can only challenge the latest verdicts after the end of the whole trial, expected to be in 2014, and the police are expected to remain free pending an appeal. The riot began in early October 1992 after an argument between two inmates spread quickly, with rival gangs among the prison's 10,000 inmates 'facing off'. Prisoners said police brutality repressed the riots, but the officer's lawyer argued that the cops were only doing their duty and acting in self-defense, as many of the rioting inmates were armed. The jail was demolished in 2002, but the state has been slow to bring those guilty to trial.