A suspected member of Basque separatist group ETA escaped from France's notorious Sante jail by swapping places with his brother during a visit, red-faced French prison authorities said today.
Mr Ismael Berasategui Escudero, arrested by French police in May in possession of a loaded pistol and suspected of being linked to a large haul of weapons found in southwest France in April, pulled off the switch on Saturday.
Prison officials only noticed the ruse today when Mr Escudero's brother, who bears a family resemblance but is not a twin, made them aware of it himself, a prison authorities spokeswoman said.
Mr Escudero's whereabouts were not known. His brother was immediately placed in custody.
A trade union for French prison officers said the incident, now the subject of an internal inquiry, was inevitable given the severe overcrowding in Sante, one of the oldest jails in Paris. Prison regulations require inmates to be marked with indelible ink on the back of their hand during visits by family, precisely to avoid such swaps. But a prison source said the practice was frequently waived after objections from inmates.
The incident comes five months after failings in French custody practice were brought to light when a mass murderer escaped through the window of a police building during questioning and plunged to his death four floors below.
The policemen questioning Richard Durn, who killed eight Paris suburb councillors during a shooting spree in March, were found not to be at fault and were not disciplined.