Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

Francesco Papa, a prisoner at the Gorgona island penal colony, walks between rows of grapevines in winemaker Marquise Lamberto Frescobaldi's vineyard on June 11, 2013.

GORGONA ISLAND, Italy -- High on a hillside overlooking the azure sea on a small Mediterranean island, two brawny men toil under the sun in a vineyard that has just released a $66 wine destined for the tables of top restaurants.

This is not an exclusive wine estate or secluded retreat for the rich, despite the tranquil beauty. It is, rather, the residence of men serving long sentences for some of Italy's most notorious and brutal crimes, on an island named after monstrous sisters in Greek mythology with snakes for hair.

Gorgona, the smallest of the Tuscan archipelago that also includes Elba, where Napoleon was incarcerated, is home to a project to rehabilitate hardened criminals through agriculture.

The island, an isolated refuge for monks for 1,500 years and a penal colony since 1869, has just produced 2,700 bottles of a crisp white wine called Gorgona with the help of a 700-year-old Italian wine dynasty. Among the buyers is a Michelin three-star restaurant in Florence.

Gorgona's 40 inmates, many of them convicted of murder, including a notorious contract killing, also produce high quality pork, vegetables, chickens, olive oil and cheese.

The two men on the hillside are serving long terms for murder and won transfer to Gorgona after years in other jails.

There is a long waiting list for entry to the island, a highly desirable location compared with most of Italy's chronically overcrowded jails.

Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

The penal colony where more than 40 prisoners work on agriculture is pictured on Gorgona island on June 11, 2013.

"When I come up here in the morning I am struck by the peace. The time does not weigh on you. It is a different mentality here," said one of them, Brian Baldissin, a tattooed and muscular 30-year-old from the northern Veneto region, whose older brother is also in the jail.

His companion, Francesco Papa, also 30 and from Sicily, agreed: "It is different here. You are outside and free. I drive a tractor. I work. You seem a normal person. Elsewhere you are inside for 23 hours a day."

Escape from Gorgona, 23 miles off the port of Livorno, is considered impossible -- although one prisoner did disappear and has never been found.

The only boat allowed near the rocky coast is a weekly ferry that brings family members for visits. Even that is not permitted to dock and passengers are taken off on police launches.

Prisoners are only locked up at night.

'Off you go'
"When I arrived and got off the launch, the first thing I did was to look round for a guard. Then they said to me: 'Off you go'. I was staggered," said Umberto Prinzi, 41, a convicted murderer serving a 22-year sentence.

He came to Gorgona after spending many years in five other prisons, and has three years left to serve.

The island, in an archipelago which includes the setting of Alexandre Dumas's novel "The Count of Monte Cristo", has only one permanent resident, 86-year-old Luisa Citti-Corsini, a tiny woman who lives with a cat called ET in a house above the harbor. Around 50 former residents visit their houses periodically, especially during the summer.

Citti-Corsini spends her time knitting and reading. "I don't feel lonely at all. I always have the cat," she told reporters on a recent visit. She said the inmates were "very polite". Asked if she was scared, she replied: "Scared of what?"

"I am magnificently fine here ... the air is fantastic."

In the 1960s, she escaped suffocation in a mudslide that swept her out of a window and dumped in the harbor.

Rehabilitation
Both prisoners and guards are strong supporters of the rehabilitation regime and say it should be used elsewhere.

Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

Benedetto Ceraulo, prisoner in the Gorgona penal colony, holds up cheese from Frescobaldi's cheese factory on June 11, 2013.

"What does prison do? A prison like Gorgona can improve you. But other institutions where you are closed 22 hours in a cell just make you bad, that's it," says Prinzi. "The screams of desperation there will stay in your head forever."

"Work in the fields is an escape valve ... If you are locked up in a cell you just watch TV and become an idiot," he added.

"I am fortunate. But there are thousands and thousands of others who don't have this chance so they get locked up, they don't understand why, and when they get out they offend again."

Higher up the island from the vineyard, Sicilian Benedetto Ceraulo, 55, works among racks of ewes' milk and cow's milk cheeses, including a deliciously light ricotta.

Ceraulo was convicted in 1998 of being the gunman in one of Italy's most sensational crimes, the murder of Maurizio Gucci, last member of the original family to control the fashion empire, on the orders of his former wife.

Ceraulo, who has repeatedly claimed he is innocent, won a transfer to Gorgona a year ago. "It's a good life here. You are free. You have the chance to learn, I feel lucky," he said.

"In other prisons it's horrible. You live in cages like wild dogs. It is not suitable for humans. If you are locked up in a cell, deprived of basic thing like privacy, a person gets worse.

"Here I can see the sea, take a stroll. The time passes."

Not far away, Chinese immigrant Jin Zhaoli works in a large nursery cultivating more than a thousand tomato, courgette, aubergine and pepper plants. He was convicted of murdering his wife 14 years ago and is due to get out in a year. "It's good here," he said.

The vines on Gorgona were first planted in 1999 but later abandoned. They were cleaned up and restored after 2009 by a now-released Sicilian inmate who had his own vineyard at home, helped by Prinzi and Papa.

The Marchesi de'Frescobaldi wine dynasty came on the scene in summer 2012 after prison authorities asked local companies to invest in the agricultural program. The firm sent experts to improve the care and picking of the vines, harvesting the same year.

Lamberto Frescobaldi, 30th generation of the family, vice president and head of wine making, said that the 2.5 acre vineyard was ideally situated, facing east toward the morning sun and planted in mineral rich soil.

Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

Marquise Lamberto Frescobaldi, a member of the winemakers family of the finest wine in Tuscany, is seen in front of his vineyard in Gorgona island.

The Frescobaldis, who were bankers and then wine suppliers to the English kings in the Middle Ages, pay a wage to the convict workers and then sell the wine.

They should roughly break even from their investment, said Frescobaldi, 49, although, for a company with an annual turnover of $107 million, it is not a money spinner.

Asked what he felt when he took his first sip of the wine, Frescobaldi replied: "It brought a tear to my eye. It made me reflect on all the people on this island that don't have the chance I have to come and go."

The governor of Gorgona, Maria Grazia Giampiccolo, is known for her progressive methods and also runs a prison inside a Medici fortress in the Tuscan town of Volterra. Inmates there run "Jailbird Dinners" every year with help from local chefs.

She is a leading advocate of engaging inmates in work by building relationships with outside companies. "We need real possibilities to reinsert inmates into society... If the response is only prison it will always be inadequate," she said.

Petar Kujundzic / Reuters

Liu Xia, wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, looks out of a car window after a trial outside a court in the Huairou district of Beijing on Sunday. The court sentenced Liu Hui, brother-in-law of Liu Xiaobo, to 11 years in prison on charges of fraud in a case that rights activists have called another example of official retribution on the Liu family.

HUAIROU, China -- A Chinese court on Sunday sentenced the brother-in-law of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison on charges of fraud in a case that rights activists have called another example of official retribution on the Liu family.

Supporters of Liu Hui say his case was trumped up, aimed at thwarting the increasing attention by the rights community on the plight of Liu Xia, who has remained under effective house arrest since her husband Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Prize in 2010.

The court in Huairou, a one-hour drive northeast of Beijing, convicted Liu Hui, a manager in a real estate company in the southern city of Shenzhen, on charges of defrauding a man named Zhang Bing of $490,000 with another colleague, lawyer Mo Shaoping told reporters.

"As Liu Hui's defense attorney, I definitely do not approve of this verdict, because we see this fundamentally as a civil issue, and it fundamentally does not constitute criminal fraud. Also, there is not sufficient evidence," Mo said.

Liu Hui has maintained his innocence, according to his lawyers.

In a rare statement to media, a weeping Liu Xia told reporters from the front passenger seat of her car as she drove away from the courthouse that she was extremely angry with the verdict and vowed to launch an appeal.

"I absolutely cannot accept this. This is simply persecution," she said. "This is completely an illegal verdict."

Liu Xia said she had "completely lost hope" in the government.

"I can't even leave my house."

After about two minutes, security forced journalists away from the car, which moved off.

Liu Hui was out on bail last September, but then arrested again in January, after several rights activists and foreign reporters forced their way past security guards late last year to visit Liu Xia, one of his other lawyers, Shang Baojun, told Reuters before the verdict.

Raphael Droszewski, a first secretary at the European Union Delegation to China, told reporters outside the courthouse that the EU was deeply concerned by Liu Hui's sentence. He called for Liu Xiaobo's release and the ending of restrictions on Liu Xia.

"As it is clear Liu Xia is under house arrest, the EU urges the Chinese authorities to end all forms of extra legal restriction on her," he said.

The ruling is seen as a setback for hopes for political reform from new Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose government has detained anti-corruption activists and tightened free expression on the Internet following his appointment in March.

"Everything related to the Liu Xiaobo case previously could have been seen as the legacy of the previous leadership," said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

"But with this sentence the new leadership buys into this suppression and persecution of the family. It deems the prospect unlikely that the government is amenable to the release of Liu Xiaobo, or will make any concessions on the case."

The case will also renew international criticism of the plight of Liu Xiaobo's family.

The verdict was handed down within hours of Xi and U.S. President Barack Obama completing an informal summit in California. U.S. and European diplomats were present outside the courthouse in Huairou, a one-hour drive northeast of Beijing.

Speaking in California after the summit, China's top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi defended the country's achievements in human rights as "there for all to see".

"With China's economic and social development, human rights causes in China will enjoy even greater progress in the future," Yang told reporters, though he did not refer directly to the Liu Hui trial.

Liu Xiaobo, a veteran dissident involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the Chinese army, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging the overthrow of one-party rule.

His wife Liu Xia is rarely allowed out and is almost never allowed to receive visitors. She has not been convicted of any crime.

Related stories:

• China Nobel winner Mo Yan likens censorship to airport security
• Assad, China warned over human rights as Nobel Peace Prize is awarded
• For Chinese winner's wife, Nobel is no prize

Mariana Bazo / Reuters

An inmate and his bride kiss during a mass wedding ceremony for prisoners at the Lurigancho prison. Although Lurigancho prison is one of the most overcrowded, violent, and unruly jails in Latin America, its more than 8,500 prisoners live with so much freedom inside the walled perimeter that they have created their own city which mimics the urban society on the outside.

All photos by Mariana Bazo / Reuters

Prisoners take part in a theatre workshop in the Lurigancho prison in Lima.

An overview of the Lurigancho prison in Lima.

Inmates participate in an Independence Day parade dressed in uniforms and carrying mock rifles.

An inmate gives a haircut inside the Lurigancho prison.

A dog runs on the roof of a wing at the Lurigancho prison.

Lurigancho Prison in Lima is where Joran van der Sloot was tried for killing a woman in Lima in 2010, five years after American teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba after spending time with him. 

Follow @NBCNewsPictures

SILIVRI, Turkey -- A Turkish court sentenced more than 300 military officers to jail on Friday for plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan almost a decade ago, ending a trial that underscored civilian dominance over the once all-powerful military.

The court in Silivri, just west of Istanbul, handed prison terms to 322 serving and retired army officers and acquitted 34, according to court documents seen by Reuters.

Two retired generals and a retired admiral considered the ringleaders of the so-called "Sledgehammer" plot to topple Erdogan in 2003 were given life terms. Their relatives collapsed in tears in the courtroom as the sentences were handed down.

The military has long been the guardian of Turkey's secular establishment, launching three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressuring an Islamist-led government to quit in 1997.

But Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party, which came to power a decade ago, has tamed military influence over policy-making and ministerial appointments as part of efforts to strengthen democracy, while prosecutors have pursued suspected coup-makers through the courts.

"To comment without seeing the reasons for the verdict would be inappropriate. There is an appeals process. What is important for us is that the right decision emerges," Erdogan told reporters in Ankara, as the sentences were being announced.

The ruling has the potential to undermine morale in the military as it battles Kurdish militants in the southeast and faces a growing challenge maintaining security along its southern border with war-torn Syria.

Turkey sends military convoys toward Syrian border

"Turkish soldiers are not just being struck down in Diyarbakir, Sirnak and Bingol, it is actually here where they have been hit," said Colonel Mustafa Onsel, one of the defendants, referring to three southeastern provinces which have seen clashes with Kurdish militants in recent months.

The court said the three sentenced to life would in fact only serve 20 years because they were unsuccessful in their bid to topple the government.

Motivated by revenge?
The "Sledgehammer" conspiracy is alleged to have included plans to bomb historic mosques in Istanbul and trigger conflict with Greece to pave the way for an army takeover.

Prosecutors had demanded 15 to 20-year jail sentences for the 365 defendants, 364 of whom were serving or retired officers.

Those sentenced to life included retired generals Cetin Dogan and Halil Ibrahim Firtina, and retired admiral Ozden Ornek, considered the ringleaders of the plot.

Those sentenced to 18-year terms included Engin Alan, a retired general elected to parliament as a member of the National Movement Party last year, and Bilgin Baranli, who had been in line to become Air Force commander before his arrest last year.

Sledgehammer is one of a series of trials that has sparked criticism that the government is using the courts to silence political opponents.

Others include the "Ergenekon" case, which involves a web of alleged plots against Turkey's government.

Thousands of people, including journalists, lawyers and politicians, are in jail pending verdicts in trials that human rights groups say raise questions about Turkey's commitment to democratic rights.

Dogan's daughter Pinar Dogan, a lecturer at Harvard University, said her family believed the case was aimed at settling old scores and pointed to reports by experts who said computer documents submitted as evidence appeared doctored.

"Going after those perceived as opposed to this government because of its Islamist leaning is motivated in part by revenge. My father was a retired man with no political clout left," she said.

Turkey: Syria shot down our warplane

"He had no sympathy for this government, but he would never have bombed mosques or shot down planes, never."

The Turkish military is NATO's second-biggest standing force after the United States. Its main domestic challenge has been militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

The past few months have seen some of the heaviest fighting since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state. Turkish troops are also serving in Afghanistan, Northern Cyprus and Lebanon as well as at small observation posts set up in the 1990s in Iraq.

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