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Kurdish criminals still on the run after
prison break in Iraqi Kurdistan
24.1.2012
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"There was information about the escape efforts by
the 11 prisoners. But there was negligence."
January
24, 2012
DUHOK,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Two of the 11 prisoners
who
escaped the
Zirkay prison in Duhok province by digging a tunnel
have been detained and are now in police custody.
Farhad Safar turned himself in on January 11 and
another fugitive Mohammed Ahmed was arrested near
the border with Syria.
Rudaw was the first media outlet to report the
unprecedented escape by the prisoners from the
prison.
Colonel Tariq Ahmed, the chief of Duhok’s police,
said the authorities do not believe the escapees
have left the Kurdistan Region.
Four escapees were facing the death penalty, two for
attempting to assassinate Nechirvan Ahmed, Duhok’s
former governor.
Ahmed said that no promise has been made to reduce
Safar’s sentence because he turned himself in
although the law allows for reduced sentencing.
“The prisoner will be dealt with through legal
means,” Ahmed said.
Ismael Salim, a cousin of Safar, told Rudaw that his
cousin and other prisoners had dug the tunnel over a
period of seven months. Salim said Safar had
confided in him the details of the escape plan after
he had fled the prison.
According to Salim, a prisoner named Fereydun Latif
Rashid was the mastermind behind the plan. Rashid is
in prison for killing his Norwegian wife in the city
of Sulaimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Rashid was in a Sulaimaniyah prison when he was
transferred to the prison in Duhok after attempting
a similar escape plan by digging a 13-meter long
tunnel, according to Salim.
Shwan Abdullah, the head of rehabilitation detention
facility in Sulaimaniyah told Rudaw that “in 2007, a
group of prisoners dug a 43-meter long tunnel but
the plan was discovered before they could finish.”
The participants in the escape plan in the Duhok
prison divided their roles. Some stood guard as
others cut through the tunnel with spoons, and then
they would switch roles.
Safar maintained that none of the prison staff or
guards cooperated with them but said the prisoners
were resourceful, even finding electricity for the
tunnel by using the prison’s electricity cables.
Among the prisoners involved in the escape plan was
a contractor who used his knowledge to ensure the
tunnel would be dug successfully. An eyewitness who
has seen the site of the tunnel from close says it
is impossible that the tunnel was dug with a spoon
as the soil hardens after digging for a while.
Rashid made all of the prisoners involved in the
escape to take an oath of silence not to betray the
rest of the group.
Safar told Salim that Rashid pretended to be a
strong believer and by so doing had attracted the
sympathy and loyalty of other prisoners. Rashid was
the first oen to escape and Safar was the third one.
They escaped in a night when moonlight had lightened
the area around the prison. Safar had crawled for
around 50 meters even when he was out of the prison
fearing he would be seen by the guards.
The 11 escapees reunited at a spot not far from the
prison and then parted ways. Safar had hidden
himself in a mountainous area for two days surviving
on the land. He met a shepherd there who had asked
Safar if he was not one of the escapees from the
prison. Safar denied that. Later police had stormed
the area searching for him but were unable to
discover his exact location as he was on the top of
the mountain. Being fed up with hunger,www.ekurd.net
Safar later went into his uncle’s home in Zakho. He
was handed over to the security forces the next day
by his relatives.
Asos Najib, the minister of Labor and Social Affairs
told Rudaw, “there was information about the escape
efforts by the 11 prisoners. But there was
negligence.”
Najib’s ministry is in charge of running adult
rehabilitation detention centers. Najib said the
prison in Duhok was thought to be safer and more
secure than prisons in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah.
Although there are rumors that security forces have
promised to reduce Farhad’s sentence.
By Abdulla Niheli
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
rudaw.net
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