Overview
- Thirty years on, coverage revisits the eight-day 1996 takeover at Sierra Chica led by the Los 12 Apóstoles with Marcelo “Popó” Brandán Juárez.
- The mutiny left at least eight prisoners dead, with bodies mutilated and burned in the prison bakery oven known as Horno 1.
- Reports from hostages and inmates describe empanadas made with human flesh, though courts issued no separate convictions for cannibalism and focused on homicides.
- A judge, María de las Mercedes Malere, and her secretary were seized as hostages during talks, and the uprising ended on Easter after authorities agreed to faster case processing and transfers.
- In 2000, a Melchor Romero court used a video-linked hearing to give life sentences to key leaders, cementing the case as a touchstone in debates over overcrowding and inmate self-rule.