CONVICTED murderer Antonis Prokopiou Kitas, known as ‘Al Capone’, remains at large despite a massive police manhunt to recapture him.
Kitas, 42, escaped from Nicosia’s Apollonion hospital in the early hours of Friday. He is serving a life sentence for murder and rape.
The lifer apparently slipped past three guards assigned to him at the hospital. Unconfirmed reports said the three had dozed off. They have been suspended pending an inquiry.
Also under suspension is the governor of the Central Prisons, as is a senior warden.
Yesterday, two people were taken to Nicosia district court in connection with the case and remanded for eight days.
Authorities got wind of the escape when ‘Capone’ was later spotted in a car on Stasicratous Street.
Three patrol cars that were in the area responding to a tip-off of a potential robbery, attempted to cut off the vehicle and it was only when Capone emerged from inside holding a gun that one officer identified him. Three more men were with Capone at the time.
Capone attempted to fire at the officers but his gun jammed. The weapon is said to have been fitted with a silencer, fuelling speculation that ‘Capone’ may have been planning a hit.
One of the officers managed to fire a shot. Capone and his accomplices then rammed the patrol cars in their path, and sped off.
The getaway car was yesterday founded abandoned near the village of Potamia; its tank was empty. The location of the car has reinforced suspicions that Capone may have escaped to the north.
Meanwhile the rumour-mill has been working overtime. According to one tale doing the rounds, Capone was wounded in the shootout; another version has it that he was killed and his body dumped somewhere.
Police have in custody Ioannis Menikou, 31, who has reportedly confessed to being with Capone and the others at the scene of the shootout.
Menikou claims that they were planning to drive Capone back to the hospital. He is the owner of the motorcycle found outside the hospital. The seat had been removed. Detectives believe that the firearm used by Capone in the subsequent shootout may have been hidden in the compartment below the seat.
Also under remand is Capone’s pregnant, Chinese wife who was with her husband in the hospital room at the time of the escape. She has been remanded in custody for eight days, but claims to know nothing of the breakout.
Also wanted in connection with the escape is 22-year-old Rodosthenis Christodoulou. The third man with Capone has yet to be identified.
Capone was suffering from a gastrointestinal condition, and had received special permission to receive treatment – for which he paid out of his own pocket – at the Apollonion, where he was admitted in June.
He is said to have already paid €23,000 with €29,000 outstanding although it is not clear how he can have afforeded this.
But that is just one of a whole catalogue of questions surrounding the astonishing case.
The hospital administrator has revealed that the Department of Corrections had requested verbally that the window of Capone’s room be sealed with iron bars. However the hospital replied it would not do so unless a request in writing was made. No such formal request was filed.
“Why did no one wonder why he [Capone] was in hospital for a full six months?” asked DISY deputy Ionas Nicolaou.
“There must be political responsibilities here,” the MP said.
Nicolaou revealed that two panels of medical experts had convened to examine Capone’s case. The first was deemed not to have the necessary expertise to adjudicate, so a second was called, which decided that the convict should undergo surgery in Cyprus.
“And why did not the Minister of Justice wonder why Capone had not undergone surgery for 180 days?”
It has further emerged that Capone had been left to freely roam within the hospital, as any other patient would, despite the fact that guards were assigned to him.
Eyewitnesses reported that the lifer had on occasion been spotted walking about outside the building.
“It’s a miracle he didn’t escape before this,’ said Andreas Demetriou, whose wife was receiving treatment at the same hospital.
Demetriou told CyBC radio that Capone was frequently seen in the hospital cafeteria or strolling about in the corridors.
After his escape on Friday morning, detectives found the window in his room was locked shut, which would rule out the possibility that Capone made his escape from there – unless an accomplice had later covered his tracks.
Police suspect Capone may have used a ladder to climb down from his second-floor room. The ladder, which was being used for repair work, was propped up against the wall on the same wing as Capone’ room.
In 1986, Capone was serving a sentence in the prison’s juvenile wing when he and four other inmates broke out from the open prison. He was later caught and returned to complete his term. Eight years later he was jailed for life and in March 1999. He was found guilty of killing two foreign women in the early 1990s.
Capone is the fourth convict to escape police custody in the past 12 months. In November 2007, two inmates broke out of the Central Prisons after smashing the gym’s window and jumping down a six-meter-high wall. One of the man was injured in the fall and recaptured; the second, a Turkish Cypriot made his way to the north, and is being held by authorities there.
One month ago, an inmate serving a four-year jail term for drug trafficking escaped under the very noses of police after he had been granted permission to visit his sick brother.
