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Lack of guards, three murderers escape from Makassar prison
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A female convict is standing at a prison gate in Kendari Penitentiary in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, on Dec. 24. (Antara /Jojon)
T
hree murderers have been on the run from the Makassar Penitentiary, South Sulawesi, since Sunday morning after sawing off their room’s ventilation bars.
“They jumped out, went through the gutter and ran off after passing through the unguarded Post 2,” Marasidin Siregar, head of Class IA Makassar Penitentiary said on Sunday, as quoted by tribunnews.com.
The convicts who escaped from the jail, Rizal Budiman, 22, Muh Tajrul Kilbareng Bin Kalbaren, 31, and Iqbal, 34, were jailed for premeditated murder.
Marasidin admitted that they were overwhelmed with only eight guards watching the penitentiary.
“There were only eight guards, so not every post was guarded,” he said.
The Makassar Penitentiary was designed to accommodate 740 convicts, but right now it houses more than 1,000 convicts and is guarded by only 128 officers.
Marasidin said he did not know how the convicts got the hacksaws to cut the ventilation bars.
“Ideally, a jail should be equipped with a wall coated wire fence and then another wall with another wire fence. But, we don’t have that here,” Marasidin said.
Police have been dispatched to pursue the trio. (hol/wit)
