An inmate at Montreal’s Bordeaux jail was beaten to death by nine inmates on Tuesday night.

Police are providing few details, but La Presse has reported the incident happened over 10 grams of tobacco allegedly hidden inside the victim’s rectum.

The victim, Michel Barrette, 46, had been serving time since July 2015 and was sentenced to 15 months in prison for drug trafficking.

Authorities say the assault happened in the D-6 sector of the minimum-security jail, where inmates are free to walk around.

It isn’t the first time there has been violence at the Bordeaux jail.

“I saw many times prisoners being beaten by a group of persons,” said former inmate Jean, who spent some time in the Bordeaux jail.

“People who die - it's not a rare case… I was lucky because I was afraid sometimes,” he said.

Smoking has been banned in jails for the past two years, including in the courtyards.

Prisoners’ right activist Marie Beemans said cigarettes have become a high commodity in Quebec jails since the smoking ban.

“In the federal system they prepared them,” she said. “They had programs, they had patches.”

Because Bordeaux is for short-term minor crime sentences, the prisoners are not given all the help they need with their addictions and mental illness,” she added.

“Especially since you have people that are dependent that are coming in and they don't have their pills, they don't have their tobacco, they don't have their drugs, so they're on withdrawal and there's a lot more violence,” she explained.

Criminologist Jean-Claude Bernheim agrees that allowing prisoners to smoke would relieve some of the tensions at Bordeaux.

“They have to take in consideration the impact to force the inmates to stop to smoke. You know when you stop smoking radically you have physical reactions,” he said.

Guards aren't to blame for the killing, he added, because they are not given enough resources to deal with the overpopulation of inmates.

Quebec Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux would not comment due to the ongoing investigation.

The Sûreté du Québec has interviewed several witnesses at the jail.

No arrests have been made so far.