At least two police officers have been detained and another is under investigation, all suspect of facilitating the second evasion of Anibal dos Santos Junior, known as "Anibalzinho" from the maximum security prison in Maputo on Sunday.
A police source said that Julio Laice, a platoon comander, and Luis Simoes, a sentinel, were preventively deteained for investigations on the circumstances of Anibalzinho's second evasion.
Anibalzinho was serving a lengthy sentence as the mastermind of the murder of the Mozambican prominent journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000.
He was tried and sentenced in absentia because he had escaped from the same jail shortly before the trial and recaptured on the eve of the reading of the sentence.
To clarify this second evasion, the operator of the prison's electronic vigilance, Francisco Chauque, is also under investigation.
It was found that he abandoned his post by about 16:00 hours, returning only at about midnight, when the police were serching for the escapee. The evasion occurred between 16:00 and 18:00 hours.
Chauque justifies his absence saying that by that time, he had been informed that his wife had fallen sick, which he later found out not to be true.
The police source, cited in Tuesday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias", says that during Chauque's absence the electronic system did not function, and nothing had been registered during that period.
Preliminary findings show that Anibalzinho escaped through a sentry box inside the reclusory premises, and enjoyed the help of guards on duty.
It was also found that the platoon comander let Anibalzinho out for the usual sun bath, not in the morning as was the regulation, but in the after noon, with the other prisoners.
Further more, not only he let out Anibalzinho in the wrong hour, but also he failed to lock back all the prisoners at 16:00 hours as is the norm.
According to the police, the prisoners were left out until about 18:00 hours, when the alert was given that Anibalzinho had escaped.
They say that these circumstances were essential to facilitate the evasion.
Laice aknowledges that all these irregularities were his fault, but Simoes, the sentinel, denies seeing Anibalzinho escape, despite the footprints leading to the sentry box, and identified as those of the scapee.
Fortunato Matangala, the prison director, says that he only learnt of the evasion at 19:22 hours, and he personally headed the initial investigations.
The police say that alerts were sent at national and international level to the srecapture of Anibalzinho. The Mozambican police have provided the INTERPOL with the escapee's personal details.
Anibalzinho';s lawyer Simeao Cuamba denies knowing anything of his client's evasion, saying that he was not yet official notified.
He added that of what happened in September 2002, his client did nopt escape, but was released. "I do not believe that Anibalzinho escaped. I believe nothing, because I do not have to believe or otherwise. All I know is through the media", he said.
Fonte: AIM
