AP EXCLUSIVE: Honduras Fire Inmates Not Convicted The prisoners whose scorched bodies were carried out piece by piece Thursday morning from a charred Honduran prison had been locked inside an overcrowded penitentiary where most inmates had never been charged, let alone convicted, according to an internal Honduran government report obtained by The Associated Press. The Honduran government report, which was sent to the United Nations this month, said 57 percent of some 800 inmates of the Comayagua farm prison north of the Central American country's capital were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members. A fire that witnesses said was started by an inmate tore through the prison Tuesday night, burning and suffocating screaming men in their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys. Officials confirmed 358 dead, making it the world's deadliest prison fire in a century. Honduran authorities said they are still investigating other possible causes based on prisoner accounts, including that the fire could have been set in collusion with guards to stage a prison break. "All of this isn't confirmed, but we're looking into it," said attorney general's spokesman Melvin Duarte said. Forensic workers load into a truck bodies of inmates killed during a fire inside the prison in Comayagua, Honduras, Wednesday Feb. 15, 2012. Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said that 272 bodies have been recovered, adding that the death toll from the fire, started by an inmate late Tuesday, was likely to cross 300. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio) Close Survivors told horrific tales of climbing walls to break the sheet metal roofing and escape, only to see prisoners in other cell blocks being burned alive. Inmates were found stuck to the roofing, their bodies fused to the metal. From the time firefighters received a call at 10:59 p.m. local time, the rescue was marred by human error and conditions that made the prison ripe for catastrophe. According to the report, obtained exclusively by the AP, on any given day there were about 800 inmates in a facility built for 500. There were only 51 guards by day and just 12 at night - the case at the time of the fire. The prison has no medical or mental health care and the budget allows less than $1 per day per prisoner for food. Prisoners only needed to bear a simple tattoo to be incarcerated under the strict Honduran anti-gang laws, the report said. The U.N. condemns the practice as a violation of international law. "This tragedy could have been averted or at least not been so catastrophic if there had been an emergency system in all the penitentiaries in the country," human rights prosecutor German Enamorado told HRN Radio. National prison system director Danilo Orellana declined to comment on the supervision or the crowded conditions in Comayagua, a prison farm where inmates grew corn and beans. He referred an AP reporter to the commander of the prison police, who said comment would have to come from his public affairs office, which did not respond to an AP request late Wednesday. President Porfirio Lobo on Wednesday suspended Orellana and other top prison officials. Inside the prison, charred walls and debris showed the path of the fire, which burned through six barracks that had been crammed with 70 to 105 inmates each in four-level bunk beds. Bodies were found piled up in the bathrooms, where inmates apparently fled to the showers, hoping the water would save them from blistering flames. Prisoners perished clutching each other in bathtubs and curled up in laundry sinks.