Five prisoners, four of whom were deemed “very dangerous”, escape from a high-security prison

They escaped after a “very well-prepared” operation. Five men aged 33 to 61, four of whom were considered “very dangerous”, escaped on Saturday 7 September from a high-security Portuguese prison located 70 kilometres north of Lisbon, reports several British media outlets including the daily Jornal de Noticias and Sky News.

The five people who escaped had been sentenced to between seven and 25 years in prison for drug trafficking, kidnapping, theft, money laundering and violence. They are two Portuguese nationals aged 33 and 61, a 39-year-old Briton, a 59-year-old Argentinian and a 42-year-old Georgian.

“Foreign aid”

Apart from the prisoner sentenced to seven years in prison, the Georgian national, the others are considered “very dangerous”, Luis Neves, national director of the Portuguese judicial police, told the daily. Newspaper.

“These people are ready to do anything to remain free (…) including putting human lives in danger,” he said.

To escape from the Vale de Judeus prison, the five men received “external help” from accomplices: they managed to give them a ladder, which “allowed the prisoners to climb the wall”, the Portuguese prison administration said.

Internal investigation

Once outside the prison walls, the fugitives boarded two cars that were waiting for them nearby. According to Luis Neves, these inmates had already tried to escape several times.

“They managed to get past a net because there are no guards to monitor the perimeter,” said Frederico Morsais, president of the Portuguese national union of prison guards.

“There have been no guard posts in the watchtowers for nine years. The cameras filmed everything, but there was no way to react because of the absence of prison guards,” lamented Herminio Barradas, president of the Association of Prison Guard Chiefs, another prison union.

According to the two unions, there were 20 guards on duty at the time of the escape for a centre that holds more than 500 prisoners. A figure disputed by Rui Abrunhosa, the director general of the National Service for Reintegration and Detention, who gave the figure of 33 officers on duty, explaining that the prison staff only became aware of the escape when they saw that the prisoners were not in their cells.

An internal investigation has been opened by the Portuguese prison administration.

- BFMTV.com