News In Brief

Guardsmen storm Peru prison, ending revolt

National Guardsmen firing machine guns stormed Lima's main jail early Wednesday to end a siege and free eight hostages, the Peruvian Prisons Bureau said. Nineteen inmates died in the attack.

The ringleader in the uprising killed himself in a dynamite blast, police said, although other reports said he was shot by a machine gun.

Opposition political groups demanded the resignation of Justice Minister Ernesto Alayza and called Interior Minister Luis Percovich to testify before Congress today. The opposition was asking how weapons and explosives had been smuggled into the El Sexto jail.