The Mozambican police last week aborted plans by a convicted drug trafficker to escape from Maputo's top security prison, reports Monday's issue of the independent newsheet "Diario de Noticias".
The drug trafficker, Andre Timana, is serving a 23 year prison sentence for installing machinery making the illegal drug mandrax in the premises of a privatised plastics factory where he was the largest shareholder.
According to the report, last Friday senior police and Interior Ministry officials, led by the director of public order in the police General command, Custodio Zandamela, raided Timana's cell, and seized equipment to be used in an escape attempt - including a mould of the key to the cell door.
This was Timana's second escape attempt. Last year he was caught in the small hours of the morning outside his cell as he attempted to make his way out of the prison. On that occasion the closed circuit television detected him.
"Diario de Noticias" says the police raid followed denunciations of Timana made by other prisoners. They had informed the General Command that Timana was planning his getaway, in connivance with several of the prison guards.
The escape date was set for Sunday, with a fall back date of this Wednesday (9 June). But once they received the information the police moved quickly, searching the cell thoroughly and finding the mould, a lengthy piece of wire, and unspecified "other equipment".
Presumably Timana had planned to slip the mould to a visitor, who would then make a duplicate key and bring it to him, either directly or via one of the guards, over the weekend.
After seizing Timana's escape kit, the police immediately transferred him to another cell, and set about changing the locks on all the cell doors.
The incident proves that the police and prison administration can be vigilant and effective when they want to be. They took seriously the inside warning that Timana was planning to escape. And last year, during Timana's first attempt, the prison security system worked well, and he was caught on camera.
All of which contrasts sharply with the failure to prevent the escape on 9 May of convicted assassin Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man who led the death squad that murdered investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000.
The prison authorities were also tipped off (by one of those convicted of ordering the Cardoso murder, Momade Assife Abdul Satar) that Anibalzinho would try to escape.
Yet there was no tightening of security. Quite the reverse: the police dog unit that patrolled the prison courtyard was withdrawn, and the closed circuit television system suffered a mysterious breakdown on the day of the escape.
Fonte: AIM
