By Rita Daou

BEIRUT, Aug 26, 2009 (AFP) - Well-connected inmates inside Lebanon's Rumieh prison can enjoy conditions granted to just a privileged few, regardless of their crime -- thanks to understaffing, incompetence and corruption.

Inside the prison's mildewed walls and overcrowded cells, money and influence are all-powerful, to the extent that even Islamist militants live a favoured existence despite the serious charges against them.

The case of Taha Haji Sleiman, a Fatah al-Islam militant facing terrorism charges, propelled the need for reform in Lebanon's prison system to centre stage.

Sleiman, a dual Syrian and Palestinian national, was charged with belonging to a "terrorist network," the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam militia which fought deadly battles with the army in a refugee camp north of Tripoli in 2007.

Yet he still managed to escape in a pre-dawn jailbreak last week before being recaptured by the army in woods near Rumieh, northeast of Beirut, a day later. Seven others failed in their bid for freedom.

Despite the seriousness of the charge against Sleiman and the seven others, one security guard in Rumieh told AFP: "Fatah al-Islam prisoners receive preferential treatment."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he added: "Some religious authorities constantly intervene on their behalf and we are not allowed to say anything."

For criminologist Omar Nashabe, they are not the only powerbrokers who can -- and do -- interfere in how the notorious Rumieh prison runs.

"Muslim and Christian clerics, businessmen, officials in embassies, security institutions, the military and prominent social figures do so as well," said Nashabe, the author of "If Rumieh Could Speak", a book on the prison.

"There are even second-rate 'stars' with enough power to intervene and improve the conditions of a certain prisoner or ensure he gets privileges," added Nashabi, who is also adviser to Lebanon's interior minister.

These privileges could include more comfortable cells on higher floors and longer hours outdoors, he said.

And with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, Fatah al-Islam inmates got "feasts from outside the prison," the guard said.

"They sometimes choose which cells they want and set their own hours for outdoor exercise."

Guards had also found two mobile phones among the belongings of the eight Fatah al-Islam prisoners involved in the jailbreak, he added.

Interior Minister Ziad Baroud described the attempted mass breakout as "one of the most dangerous things that could happen."

After an inquiry exposed shortcomings inside the prison, including staff negligence that could have facilitated the breakout, he had several prison officials arrested.

Baroud also ordered the sacking of 360 internal security forces officers at the country's 21 prisons.

The minister told AFP that he continually received "complaints about transgressions and incompetence within the prisons" -- but he also stressed that the country's jails were both understaffed and under-equipped.

They are overcrowded too.

Although Rumieh was originally built to house 1,500 inmates, more than 4,000 men -- 65 percent of the country's prison population -- are crammed inside the facility.

"In the building from which the inmates tried to flee, there are eight guards for 920 prisoners," the security guard told AFP of last week's breakout.

"I work 16 hours daily for four days in a row."

Rumieh is a microcosm, in some respects, of life outside its walls, said the founder of one independent group that helps prison inmates.

"The rich buy their privileges and the poor just become even poorer than they were before," said Father Hadi Aya, founder of the Association Justice et Misericorde (AJEM), which offers free services to prisoners, including defence lawyers and counselling.

Languishing at the base of the power pyramid inside the prison system are the foreigners, he told AFP.

Blanca, a 35-year-old Sri Lankan working in Lebanon, pleads the case of her compatriot Rupie, 28, who spent a month in a women's prison in the northern coastal city of Tripoli after failing to renew her residency permit on time.

"They did not even give her food," Blanca told AFP. "I brought her a dish daily all the way from Jounieh" just north of the capital.

"Entering prison in Lebanon amounts to a death sentence, regardless of the offence," Father Hadi said. "Like the country in which they are located, inside these prisons there is no justice, no rule of law."

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Copyright AFP 2009.