Great escape leaves Greece in a whirl - again
Helena Smith in Athens
February 24, 2009
TO ALLOW a notorious convict to escape from a fortress prison by helicopter once is unfortunate. Letting him pull off the same stunt twice would be downright careless. Yet that is exactly what happened in Athens as Greece's most famous prisoner - and jail breaker - flew to liberty for a second time, leaving guards firing desperately into the air and officials scratching their heads in disbelief.
Nearly three years after a helicopter plucked Vassilis Paleokostas and a fellow inmate from the high-security Korydallos prison, he has done it again - with even more panache and precision.
As authorities launched a manhunt, described as "unprecedented in scope", the prison guards faced a barrage of questions over how the 42-year-old armed robber and kidnapper could have fled with Alket Rizai, his Albanian sidekick, from under their noses in just four minutes.
The two men had been temporarily removed from solitary confinement to attend trial for the first jail break, and security measures were supposed to have been tightened.
"We saw the helicopter fly very low, circle the prison twice, disappear behind a [prison] wing and then fly off again," one witness told local TV.
'I'd say the entire episode took about four minutes. It was the shooting that went on."
The pair made their exit on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. And, as in 2006, they went for it Hollywood-style, in a blaze of bullets fired by guards (one of whom injured himself in the process). According to reports, this second escape was aided by a woman in the helicopter who threw a rope down to the men in the prison courtyard for them to climb up. The helicopter was found within hours of the getaway by an elderly couple near a motorway in central Greece, with its commandeered pilot tied up in the cockpit.
The motorway leads to the region's impenetrable mountain range where Paleokostas managed to flee after his last escape.
"I won't tolerate this embarrassment," said the Justice Minister, Nikos Dendias, who dismissed the prison warden and two other officials.
The audacity of the prison break could reinforce the inept image of the fragile centre-right Greek Government.
"This stability, today, is just in theory," said George Kirtsos, a political analyst based in Athens. "The reality is that Greece is boiling and the state of law and order is crumbling."
Guardian News & Media;
The New York Times
http://www.smh.com.au/world/great-escape-leaves-greece-in-a-whirl--again-20090223-8fui.html
