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'Psychological pressure' behind killer's jail-break
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Rizal aka Anwar appears before the media in 2015 following his arrest for raping and murdering his niece in Jasinga, Bogor, West Java. (Kompas.com/Kahfi Dirga Cahya)
P
sychological pressure from other inmates is likely to have induced a convicted murderer and rapist to escape from prison, a minister has said.
Anwar, 26, also known as Rizal, who was serving time at the Salemba Detention Center in Central Jakarta, escaped on Thursday disguised as a woman.
“In prison, rapists are commonly treated badly by other inmates because perpetrators of sexual abuse are considered cowards,” Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said on Tuesday.
Anwar was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 24 and sent to the correctional facility for raping and killing a 12-year-old girl last October. He escaped after his wife Ade Irma Suryani visited him and supplied him with female attire such as a gamis (long Muslim dress), a hijab and sunglasses, which he wore to escape detection by prison officials as he fled.
Previously, Akbar Hadi, a spokesman for the ministry’s Directorate General of Penitentiaries, said that at that time there were more than 2,000 visitors at the detention center and only 50 guards on duty, adding that, since it was a male-only detention center, guards did not closely examine female visitors.
Ade has been named a suspect charged with helping a prisoner to escape and abetting a crime; she could face more than two years' imprisonment, according to Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiono. (wnd)
