A Honduran court has sentenced a former prison official to 1,051 years in jail for the deaths of 69 people in a 2003 prison massacre. The three-judge panel announced its largely symbolic verdict against prison official Dimas Antonio Benitez on Saturday. Honduran law says people can't be jailed for more than 30 years.
Benitez was one of the directors at the El Porvenir prison where 65 inmates, a guard and three visitors died in an intentionally set fire in 2003.
The court sentenced Benitez, 10 other prison employees and 10 inmate trustees for having helped set fire to cells holding inmates who belonged to a violent "Mara" street gang.
The other defendants were sentenced to lesser jail terms.