|
Breaking from jail is serious offence
2008-04-20 11:10:53
By Staff Reporter
Jail breaking is a serious offence. Prison authorities are always on high alert against such incidents.
According to informed sources, there is high security and dynamic security, and an inmate can only succeeds in breaking jail when there is collaboration from various quarters which include inside help.
Whenever there is such a break, a number of people close to the premises become suspect and thorough investigations are conducted to establish the extent of their involvement.
In the case of Shabani Malekela, who admitted to have broken from jail, the circumstances of his escape are still not yet fully established, although it is now clear that seven inmates comprising of three long serving prisoners and four remand prisoners were involved.
Quite a number of warders at Iringa Prison were said to have been suspected, and some were put under investigation.
It came as a great surprise for the then officer-in-charge, Mtiga Omari, who was in his office as the prisoners broke the fortified walls and escaped. ``It was around 10.00 am on a Sunday.
I was in my office. I learned about the jail-break saga one hour later when I was at the Prisons Rest House.``
It may sound like fiction but the fugitive prisoners took about a week to create their exit hole in the stone-walls of the prison.
It is this kind of impressive, though criminal, planning that makes authorities believe that some warders might have been involved because no one gets access into the prisons without going through rigorous checks at the main entry gate into the walled prison building to detect any undesired substances.
Even the warders do undergo those checks. If one is found to have anything that is suspect, he/she would either be refused entry or relieved of those undesired substances for custody to be returned at exit.
Although Malekela says he broke from jail three times, according to informed sources he broke out only once.
Twice, however, he escaped from Isanga Prison in Dodoma while he was out at Dodoma Government Hospital where he always went to do errands for the prison`s dispensary.
Sometimes he went to collect medicine and it was during these missions that he escaped.
It was his fourth escape attempt that earned him chains until late last year when he completed his term.
He had tried to break Ukonga Prison in Dar es Salaam.
|
