Eighteen die in Algeria jail fire

ALGIERS, Algeria -- A fire has ripped through an Algerian high security jail, killing 18 prisoners and injuring 11 others, Algeria's official news agency has said.

The fire at Serkadji prison in Algiers on Tuesday night appears to have been started by prisoners who had set their mattresses ablaze after seeing a 19-year-old inmate attempting to kill himself, the APS news agency reported.

It is the second major incident at the jail in the past seven years.

In 1994 more than 90 people, most of them prisoners, died when detainees clashed with troops in a failed mass breakout.

Most of the detainees in the century-old Serkadji are Islamists, many of them sentenced to death or serving life sentences for their roles in rebel activities.

Among the inmates are army officer Lembarek Boumaarafi, who was sentenced to death for killing President Mohamed Boudiaf in 1992. It was not immediately clear whether he was among the casualties.

No detainee has had any death sentence carried out since 1993, human rights activists say.

The number of prisoners in Algeria, including Islamist detainees, is about 40,000 -- scattered across the country's 145 prisons with a capacity of 34,000. The government plans to build four new prisons.