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COLOMBO, (AFP) Another Maldivian prisoner has died in Sri Lanka, doctors said yesterday as President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom sacked his police chief after unprecedented rioting in a nation better known as a tourist paradise.

The prisoner's death on Thursday at Colombo's privately-owned Apollo Hospital brings to four the number of convicts who have died as a result of rioting at a prison in the Maldives a week ago.

Two prisoners died on Friday and Saturday while a third died on Monday after admission to a hospital in Sri Lanka.

Seven inmates were flown in two batches to Colombo on Sunday and Monday following the prison clash, which sparked street rioting in the capital Male.

The latest death coincided with Gayoom winning all 50 votes in parliament to secure a sixth five-year term to lead the tiny nation of 1,192 coral islands, the most expensive tourist destination in the Indian Ocean.

Gayoom's office said in a statement that he had expressed his condolences to the parents of the latest victim of gun shot injuries sustained in a clash with the National Security Service (NSS) on Friday and Saturday.

"On receiving the news today, the president telephoned Mr Abdul Gadir Ali, the father and Mrs Zulaikha Moosa, the mother of the deceased, and expressed his condolences to the family," the statement said.

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