Cannibal kills for brain food

2004-07-09 13:48

Chateauroux - A French prisoner serving 30 years for murder and cannibalism was under psychiatric evaluation on Friday after killing another detainee and trying to eat his brain, officials and a prison guards' union said.

The 36-year-old inmate, who was not named, had to be overpowered by eight people to stop him gorging on his victim, the head of the Federal Autonomous Penitentiary Union, Frederic Grandcolas, said.

The attack happened in the prison of Saint-Maur, central France, last Sunday.

The prisoner, jailed in 2000 for his horrific crimes three years earlier, burst out of his cell as dinner was being handed out and attacked guards and convicts serving the meal with an ashtray.

After smashing the skull of one of the convicts, he started eating the brain before being hauled away and taken to a psychiatric institution nearby.

During subsequent questioning by police, he said "he heard voices telling him he was going to be attacked during the meal, but he says he doesn't remember anything of what he did," according to a local state prosecutor, Stephanie Forax.

Grandcolas said he understood that the prisoner would not be put back in the general penitentiary population after the mental evaluation was over.

Several staff at the Saint-Maur jail had to receive counselling after the incident.

- AFP