Indonesia hunts escaped prison inmates after jailbreak

Indonesian security forces on Monday hunted for about 15 inmates who escaped from an overcrowded jail on Sumatra island, in the latest breakout to hit the country’s decrepit prison system.

Prisoners rampaged through Labuhan Ruku jail on Sunday, setting fire to the building and attacking wardens, angered at a failure to give them sentence reductions and their treatment.

Some 30 prisoners escaped but police and soldiers managed to recapture 16 overnight and regain control of the prison in Batubara district, said district chief J.P. Sinaga.

“We are still hunting down the others,” he added. The prison had been almost three times over its capacity of 300 inmates when the violence erupted.

Officials did not know what offences the escapees had committed although Labuhan Ruku is not a high-security jail and was unlikely to be holding serious offenders, such as terrorism convicts.

Following two jailbreaks in Indonesia in July, Interpol issued an alert saying it suspected al-Qaeda involvement in those breakouts and other escapes that occurred around the same time in different countries.

However, Indonesian officials have played down the possibility of links between the jailbreaks and the terror network.