BY MICHAEL NORTON
 Associated Press

 PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Riots that broke out in the national penitentiary left five inmates dead and two police officers injured, the director of Haiti's prison system said Friday.

 The violence erupted Thursday when an inmate slapped a prison guard. Inmates broke down cell doors and set fire to the kitchen, said prison system director Clifford Larose. When police arrived, prisoners began throwing stones and bottles.

 Two inmates died from bullet wounds and two others died from stab wounds, Larose said. It was unclear how the fifth inmate died.

 The penitentiary, which is supposed to hold a maximum of 800 prisoners, actually holds more than 2,000. Only one out of five inmates has been tried.

 In recent years, prisons have been renovated, and improvements have been made in record keeping, management and the feeding of inmates. But Amnesty International said in a September report that overcrowding due to the backlog of cases was jeopardizing the health and safety of detainees.

 The overall budget for more than 4,000 detainees in some 20 prisons nationwide has remained unchanged since 1995, despite inflation and a nearly threefold increase in the prison population.

 Prisoners fall sick and die without adequate medical treatment, and there are complaints of brutality by guards.

 "The penitentiary is a powder keg. It will explode again if something radical isn't done about the deplorable conditions of detention,'' said Jean-Claude Bajeux, director of the Haitian Ecumenical Human Rights Center.