FOUR Tunisian prison warders have each received four-year jail sentences for torturing a prisoner so severely he eventually had to have both legs amputated as a result of injuries, court sources said on Saturday. Former boxer Ali Mansouri, in jail for a criminal offence, was beaten and chained up in his cell in March to force him to give up a hunger strike. In April he was hospitalised and both legs had to be amputated following his maltreatment. The court also ordered the Tunisian government to pay 300_000 dinars ($210_000) to Mansouri in compensation. The victim’s lawyer said later the judgment was unprecedented. For the first time the Tunisian state was being made to share responsibility for tortures committed in Tunisian jails, he said. Torture is effectively institutionalised in Tunisia, though it has ratified the international convention against torture. – AFP