Four Russian Prisoners Die After Attacking Staff

Four Russian prisoners died after guards beat them following an attack on staff at a Urals prison, the regional prosecutor's office said on Monday.

Authorities in the city of Chelyabinsk said the four men had behaved aggressively when transported to the local prison to serve out their sentences, calling on other prisoners to join them in rising up against the guards in their bus.

"The convicts attacked administrative staff with self-fashioned blades ... Five staff were injured to varying degrees," the prosecutor's office said on its Internet site www.chelproc.ru.

Guards used rubber truncheons and handcuffs to control the prisoners and later isolated the men in separate cells. Authorities said a medical worker looked in on the men, but towards evening their health deteriorated and all four died.

The Chelyabinsk prosecutor's office said it had opened an investigation into the deaths.