ARMY disposal experts have been called to Maghaberry prison because of a security alert.

All visits to the jail have been cancelled as a result.

The alert is outside the perimeter of the prison, according to the Department of Justice.

Police were sent to the scene following a telephoned bomb warning.

The Old Road has been closed between Corrstown Road and Leckey Road. No buildings have been evacuated.

The bomb warning t comes a day after an incident involving at least 40 dissident republican inmates at the jail.

Prison management withdrew staff from the landings in Roe House which house dissidents.

Riot squad officers were sent into Roe House from last Friday to deal with the situation and immediately locked down the wing.

Dissident republicans claimed inmates were “assaulted” with some left with “broken bones”’.

However, the prisoners later returned to their cells.

Last night, around 200 people held a noisy protest outside the jail gates.

At one stage, placard-wielding protestors attacked a car belonging to a prison warder arriving for work.