Two Bali escaped inmates, including Indian, captured in East Timor

Jakarta, June 23

Two inmates, including an Indian, who tunnelled their way out of a Bali prison have been captured in East Timor, police said on Saturday, in the latest prison break case in Indonesia.

Indian Sayed Mohammed Said and Bulgarian Dimitar Nikolov Iliev were caught at a hotel in Dili yesterday after arriving on a boat illegally from Indonesia.

They had escaped from Kerobokan prison Monday along with two other inmates, Australian Shaun Edward Davidson and Malaysian Tee Kok King.

The pair was originally caught for entering East Timor without legal documents, said East Timor senior police official Henrique da Costa, but police later concluded the pair was two of the four Bali fugitives.

“We will most likely hand them back to the Indonesia Friday afternoon now that we know they are fugitives,” da Costa told AFP.

The four foreign inmates escaped Bali’s prison through a 50 x 75cm (20 x 30 inch) hole at the prison’s wall that connects to a 15-metre (49-foot) long water tunnel heading towards a main street.

Davidson—who was going to be freed within months—and the Malaysian inmate are still on the run.

The Bali jailbreak came days after dozens of prisoners swam through flood waters to escape an Indonesian jail in Jambi province after one of its walls collapsed. Most were later recaptured.

In May, more than 440 inmates fled a prison in Pekanbaru City on the island of Sumatra after prison guards let them out of their cells to pray. Only about half were caught. — AFP