A Sri Lankan inmate was busted trying to smuggle a cellphone into prison when it rang from inside his rectum, a hospital official told Agence France Presse.

Guards at the maximum-security Welikada jail in Colombo were searching the 58-year-old convict before he was to be put behind bars when the cellphone went off. The inmate was taken to hospital for the removal of the device.

"Unfortunately for him, the phone rang at the wrong time and guards knew he had a phone at the wrong end," a hospital official who didn't want to be identified said, AFP reported.

The prisoner was released from hospital two days later and returned to the jail on Friday to serve a 10-year sentence for theft.