A British prisoner, described as “very dangerous”, has escaped from a prison in Portugal using a ladder and a hand-made rope.
Mark Cameron Roscaleer – who is serving a nine-year sentence for kidnap and robbery – broke free from the high-security prison on Sunday morning.
Four other inmates also escaped from Vale de Judeus jail – which is located around 40 miles north of Lisbon.
Luís Neves, the director of the Portuguese judicial police, said four of the five escapees are “dangerous” and “violent” men who “will do anything to remain free”.
Their crimes include violent robbery, drug trafficking and organised crime.
Authorities say the prisoners received “external help” to successfully carry out their escape.
Accomplices outside the prison supplied the inmates with a ladder that “allowed the inmates to scale the wall”, the Portuguese prison service (DGRSP) said.
Frederico Morais, president of Portugal’s national prison guards’ union said: “They managed to jump a fence because there are no guards to watch the perimeter… put the ladder against the wall and, from there, with a handmade rope, they climbed over the wall.”
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Neves added that it was a “complex operation by organised criminals with financial capacity [with] everything thought out down to the smallest detail”.
Among the escapees was an Argentinian and a Georgian national.
Two Portuguese men were serving the longest sentences of 25 years, including 61-year-old Fernando Ribeiro Ferreira, who were jailed for crimes including robbery and kidnapping.
Manuel Vieira, deputy secretary general of the Portuguese internal security system, said that the authorities of the Schengen area, Interpol and Europol had all been informed.
Mark Cameron Roscaleer and four other inmates escaped from Vale de Judeus jail – which is located around 40 miles north of Lisbon
DGRSP
However, at this time an emergency closure of Portugal’s borders will not take place.
“We are currently quite comfortable with the circulation of information both nationally and internationally,” Vieira said.
“We are doing everything that can be done.”