Jail break at Turnhout Prison
Five prisoners escaped from Turnhout prison in Antwerp province on Thursday evening. Three of the five have since been recaptured, the other two are still on the run. Police went to the prison straight away after having received reports of the prison break. A search was started immediately in an effort to catch the fugitives.
They made their escape by climbing over the prison wall and were driven away from the prison in a getaway car that was waiting for them in the street adjacent to the jail.
The Turnhout Local Police Service reports that a number of patrol vehicles, a Federal Police helicopter and a tracker dog were deployed to carry out a search of a wide area around the prison. A call was issued to anyone that might have seen anything they might see as suspicious to contact the police straight away.
By Friday morning three of the fugitives had been captures. One of the men on the run is Oualid Sekkaki, the 26-year-old brother of the “Escape King” Ashraf Sekkaki. Ashraf Sekkaki is currently in prison in Morocco and once also managed to escape from Turnhout Prison.
As the search goes on for the two remaining fugitives an enquiry is under way into how they were able to escape.