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November 3, 2014

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Prisoner gets a shock when his escape bid doesn’t go to plan

A CONVICT who escaped from a prison in south China’s Guangdong Province on Saturday was yesterday found hiding in grass outside an abandoned factory just across the road, police said.

It is believed he’d received a massive shock from electrified fencing at the prison but fell to the ground outside the prison walls. A fellow escapee was not quite so lucky, he fell back inside.

Li Mengjun, 28, had been sentenced to death with a reprieve for robbery in 2006. Before his “escape” he had 19 years and nine months of his sentence remaining.

Li had planned his jailbreak with fellow inmate Wu Changgui, police said.

On Saturday, the pair left a workshop at the Beijiang Prison in Shaoguan through an emergency fire engine access, broke the lock of a security gate and climbed over a wall, only to encounter the electrified fencing.

Wu was immediately taken into custody and a hunt for Li began with police and paramilitary officers setting up road blocks.

The local government offered a reward of up to 200,000 yuan (US$32,700) for any clues leading to his recapture.

Just 10 days before the jailbreak Li’s sister had told the Beijing Times in an interview that her brother had written to prison officials disclosing the whereabouts of Li Ming, another suspect in the robbery case.

Cheng Dachao, deputy director of provincial prison authority, said there were several factors to blame for the escape attempt. They included the prison’s outdated security facilities and an abandoned building where the pair could escape monitoring by guards.

Cheng said the incident had alerted authorities to management flaws and he promised improvements to the prison’s internal management and its security measures.

It was the country’s second jailbreak in less than two months.

In early September, three inmates escaped from a detention center after killing a guard in Heilongjiang Province. All have since been recaptured.




 

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