Stunning model killed on visit to Guatemala prison during riot in which four people BEHEADED
Joanna Birriel was visiting Bryon Lima - one of the country's most powerful inmates - when the violence erupted
A STUNNING model who died during a jail riot in Guatemala that claimed the lives of a dozen inmates has been named as Joanna Birriel.
The 24-year-old brunette was visiting prison kingpin and former army officer Bryon Lima when she was caught up in the gang violence.
The riot began when a fellow inmate threw a hand grenade at Lima – banged up for the murder of a bishop bludgeoned to death with a concrete block in 1998 – and supporters protecting him attacked their rivals with guns.
It was previously known that an Argentine woman visitor had been killed, but her identity only emerged this afternoon.
Officials said she visited Lima – who prosecutors claim built a multimillion pound illegal prison empire based on threats and corruption – once a month.
The gangster’s brother Luis Alberto said the model had worked for them as an advisor for a bio-health park company.
Joanna – who was born in the North-Eastern Argentinian province of Misiones – moved to Guatemala with a boyfriend she later broke up with.
She was initially identified by local press as Bryon Lima’s girlfriend in what is thought to have been an error.
Her current boyfriend – an agronomist – is also said to have worked alongside her.
It has not yet been revealed how she was killed, although four of the dead were decapitated.
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The riot occurred yesterday at Granja Pavon Prison, 12 miles southeast of the Guatemalan capital Guatemala City.
Officials have blamed the violence on feuding between Byron Lima’s gang and a rival gang led by drugs trafficker Marvin Montiel Marin.
Marin was sentenced to 820 years behind bars for the murder of 15 Nicaraguans and a Dutchman on a bus said to be carrying cocaine, back in November 2008.
Lima’s lawyer said he had reports from prison inmates that his client had recently forbidden a rival gang from selling drugs in the prison where he was serving his sentence for the bishop’s murder.
The ex-soldier was convicted in 2001 for the killing of Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi – an opponent of the then military regime.
The clergyman was the head of the Guatemalan Catholic Church’s human rights division.
His brutal slaying came just two days after publishing a report blasting the military for atrocities committed during the country’s 36-year civil war.
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