CARACAS, Venezuela — A three-week prison standoff that pitted armed inmates against troops ended on Friday as the last of more than 1,600 inmates filed out and agreed to be moved to other prisons, Venezuelan officials said.
Groups of inmates emerged from La Planta prison with their hands on their heads, flanked by troops, and stepped aboard trucks to be transferred to other prisons.
Iris Varela, the government's prisons minister, announced on Friday night that the last of the inmates had come out.
"There's no impossible mission," she said on television.
Officials took down a sign at the prison, which the government is permanently shutting down.
The prisoners began leaving on Thursday night hours after heavy gunfire erupted inside the prison during clashes that also left clouds of tear gas wafting through the adjacent neighborhood. The authorities had been trying to persuade members of an armed group inside to give up and leave so that the prison could be closed. The prisoners had been resisting being transferred to other penitentiaries.
Varela said the gunfire on Thursday at La Planta resulted from a confrontation between inmates. Some prisoners, however, have accused National Guard troops of involvement. Video posted on the Internet showed bullets hitting the prison from the outside.
At least three people in areas outside the prison were wounded by stray bullets during the frenzy of shooting on Thursday, said Diosdado Cabello, National Assembly president. During the violence, skirmishes also erupted outside the prison between distraught relatives of inmates and troops using tear gas to drive them away.
Venezuelan officials had announced plans to close La Planta following two escape attempts and complaints of overcrowding, saying the facility doesn't meet standards. But even after hundreds of inmates were moved to other prisons in recent weeks, a group of armed inmates effectively kept the authorities out of the prison since late last month.
Prison unrest and crowding have become major problems for President Hugo Chavez's government. Violence is common inside Venezuela's prisons, where inmates often manage to obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards. The watchdog group Venezuelan Prisons Observatory says about 560 people died in Venezuelan prisons last year, up from 476 in 2010.
Tensions at La Planta prison had risen since April 27, when Varela said authorities found a tunnel dug by inmates that led to a sewer, foiling an escape attempt. Three days later, gunfire erupted at the prison after what Varela described as another escape attempt.
In a May 8 incident, heavy gunfire rang out at the prison and one man in a nearby apartment was killed by a stray bullet.
"This is truly a place where no human being can be under any conditions," Varela said on television outside La Planta while prisoners were coming out on Friday. She noted that before the recent escape attempts one young woman was killed last month during a visit and that the authorities subsequently halted visits by inmates' relatives.
She said many prisoners were moved to El Rodeo I prison east of Caracas. That prison was the scene of clashes and a 27-day standoff last year pitting armed inmates against troops. Officials say the prison has been partially rebuilt after some areas were destroyed by fire during the violence and walls were knocked down by authorities searching for hidden weapons and other contraband.
Associated Press writer Jorge Rueda contributed to this report.