Brazil Inmates Free Captives, Flee on Foot : Kidnaping: Cardinal, 12 other hostages are unharmed. Convicts escape after shootout.

Inmates who fled a prison with a Roman Catholic cardinal and 12 other hostages left their captives behind and fled on foot early Wednesday after crashing their armored van into a tree.

Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider, 69, complained only of stiff legs after his release.

He said he had “prayed for and forgiven” the prisoners who had seized him and other hostages at knifepoint Tuesday while they were visiting the jail as part of a human rights commission.

Thirteen inmates held sharpened spoons to the throats of the hostages at the maximum-security Paulo Sarasate Prison near Fortaleza, 1,750 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. A shootout left two inmates dead and two police officers and a guard wounded.

After 12 hours of negotiations, police agreed to permit the prisoners to leave, providing the armored van and weapons. In exchange, the inmates were to release most of their hostages. But instead, they dumped only the wounded guard out of the van as they sped past the prison gates.

With police behind them, the fugitives drove throughout the night. At one point, they stopped at the home of 22-year-old Robertson Francisco’s parents.

Francisco--one of the leaders of the rebellion, who was serving time for double homicide--gave the hostages milk, his mother, Liduina de Aguiar Muniz, told reporters.

“One of the prisoners apologized to the hostages, saying it was the only way,” she said.

The fugitives and their hostages then took off again.

Another freed hostage, Father Aldo Padotto, said the prisoners grew desperate as the van had difficulty climbing steep hills.

After the van crashed into the tree, they abandoned it and let the captives go.

“But it was hours of terrible tension,” Padotto said.

Police arrived shortly afterward, after the hostages were safe.

The inmates, armed with rifles and revolvers they had obtained as part of their deal with prison authorities, fired on police, according to military police Lt. Paulo Neto. Thinking the prisoners were still in the van, the police sprayed it with bullets, he said.

In the confusion, the fugitives ran deep into the surrounding woods.

The fleeing prisoners were believed to include members of a notorious Rio de Janeiro gang involved in drug trafficking.

The hostages included two bishops, a priest, the prison director, a state legislator, a city councilman, the councilman’s wife, two Brazilian journalists, a photographer and two others.