THE PRISON guards under whose watch two men broke out of the Central Prisons are to be named today, while a disciplinary inquiry has been launched against the responsible wardens, of whom there are believed to be at least four.
“The probe shall be conducted properly and objectively, so that its result its fair. It is not our aim to stigmatise anyone,” said Justice Minister Sophocles Sophocleous yesterday after inspecting the getaway trail of the two inmates.
Sophocleous has had to act swiftly under fierce criticism of lax security measures, but is also at pains to show that authorities are not seeking out scapegoats.
Authorities now have a clearer picture of how the two inmates broke out of a high-security wing last Sunday, dodging manned watchtowers, cameras and barbed wire.
Panayiotis Netzadi and Odysseas Kalanides staged their brash escape in the afternoon. The convicts had managed to smash a window in the prison’s gym using gym equipment, jumped down a six-metre-high wall and ran in the direction of the buffer zone.
But Kalanides, a Greek Pontian from Georgia, hurt his ankles in the fall. He did not get very far as he trudged through the buffer zone in a bid to cross over into the north. Kalanides was arrested by Turkish Cypriot police, who handed him over to the south through the mediation of UNFICYP.
The 28-year-old is being held pending his trial for the murder of Russian national Kristina Polyntsova in April.
He is currently under heavy guard at Nicosia’s general hospital, and will be returned to his jail cell as soon as he is fit.
Kalanides has already given a statement to police, shedding light on Sunday’s breakout. He is believed to have given detectives a blow-by-blow account of the escape, which he and Netzadi had been planning for days.
The other fugitive, 33-year-old Netzadi, is now in the custody of Turkish Cypriot authorities. It is not yet clear how he was apprehended, with some reports saying he voluntarily turned himself in.
Netzadi is wanted in the north for desertion, but according to unconfirmed reports yesterday he also faces charges there of sexually abusing a minor and, more spectacularly, of spying on the breakaway regime for the south.
The breakaway regime’s ‘Interior Minister’ Ozkan Murat yesterday put paid to speculation on whether or not Netzadi would be delivered back to the south.
“He is a citizen of the ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’, and shall not return to southern Cyprus unless he asks so himself,” Murat said.
Netzadi was serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, rape and murder of 20-year-old Slovak Janka Kovacova in the summer of 2006.
According to Politis yesterday, there were two guards assigned to the high-security wing No. 4. At some point, the guard who was keeping an eye on the two inmates while they were training in the gym went to the toilet without calling for a replacement.
The officer on duty at the watchtower right across the gym was at his post, but neither saw nor heard nothing, even though the inmates must have made considerable noise as they jumped from the wall.
Also, the person in charge of monitoring the CCTV system claims he was at his post yet somehow missed the entire escape.
There are other questions that await answers: why was the gym window designed to be large enough to enable a person to fit through it? Why was the gym equipment (i.e. bars, benches) not secured? How did the inmates manage to file through the wire mesh covering the window?
In the wake of the escape, and amid suspicions that the two inmates had help from the inside, former prison director Panicos Kyriacou has spoken of corrupt wardens who would not be above assisting felons.
Kyriacou said he knew of five to six individuals who were part of this “fifth column” and who are employed in the Central Prisons to this day.
Current prison director Michalis Hadjidemetriou declined to comment when quizzed by reporters.
