TO ALLOW a notorious convict to escape from a fortress prison by helicopter once is unfortunate. Letting him pull off the same stunt twice would be downright careless.
Yet that is exactly what happened in Athens yesterday as Greece’s most famous prisoner – and jail breaker – flew to liberty for a second time, leaving guards firing desperately into the air and officials scratching their heads in disbelief. Nearly three years after a helicopter plucked Vassilis Paleokostas and a fellow inmate from the high-security Korydallos prison, he has done it again – with even more panache and precision. As authorities last night launched a manhunt, the prison guards faced a barrage of questions over how the 42-year-old serial armed robber and kidnapper could have fled with Alket Rizai, his Albanian sidekick, from under their noses in approximately four minutes flat.
The two men had been temporarily removed from solitary confinement to attend trial for the first jailbreak, and security measures were supposed to have been tightened. “We saw the helicopter fly very low, circle the prison twice, disappear behind a [prison] wing and then fly off again,” one witness told local TV.
“I’d say the entire episode took about four minutes. It was the shooting that went on.” And, as in June 2006, the pair went for it Hollywood-style, in a blaze of bullets fired by guards (one of whom injured himself in the process).
According to reports, this second escape was aided by a woman passenger in the helicopter who threw a rope down to the men in the courtyard for them to climb up. The helicopter was found within hours of the getaway by an elderly couple near a motorway in central Greece, with its commandeered pilot tied up, gagged and hooded in the cockpit.
The motorway leads to the region’s impenetrable mountain range where Paleokostas managed to flee the long arm of the law after his last escape.
Then, the Robin-Hood style figure got out with the help of his older brother Nikos. The older Paleokostas is currently also serving a long jail sentence for robbery and last night prison authorities, wanting to take no chances, moved fast to tighten security around him. – (Guardian service)