Manhunt in Sweden to find escaped prisoners

Police in Sweden launched a nationwide manhunt today for two inmates armed with a knife who escaped from a high security prison with a hostage.

The escape, the third prison break since July, sparked the resignation of the country’s director of the prison board.

Lena Haell Eriksson, director general of the National Prison and Probation Administration, resigned last night after two inmates escaped from the Mariefred prison, 24 miles west of the capital, Stockholm.

Tobias Jardeberg, 28, and Aake Martinsson, 35, used a knife smuggled into the prison to threaten unarmed guards and took a 54-year-old male worker hostage. They stole a white Toyota van in the prison car park and escaped.

Jardeberg was serving a life sentence for murder and Martinsson was in prison for drug offences.

Sweden’s relatively lax approach to prison security was hotly debated after two dramatic breakouts over the summer. Prison guards in Sweden’s penal system are unarmed.

In July, four men broke out of the maximum security Hall prison outside Stockholm with a handgun smuggled into the jail. No one was hurt during the jail break, and the four men were later recaptured.

A week after the escape from Hall, three more inmates broke out of a high-security prison in Norrtaelje, about 47 miles north-east of Stockholm, assisted by masked men with automatic weapons. They were also recaptured.

Police suspect prison employees helped the inmates escape in both cases.