Belgium: 20 convicts missing after prison break

Police are searching for 20 fugitive convicts today, a day after they overpowered guards and escaped from a prison in northern Belgium, officials said.

Seven of the 28 inmates who escaped early yesterday were recaptured the same day, and one more was caught this morning, said Christian Du Four, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office.

“The search continued all night … by various police units throughout Belgium,” Du Four told reporters.

Two of the inmates had seized several guards at the prison in Dendermonde, about 25 miles north west of Brussels, and stole their keys. They released the other prisoners, scaled the outer walls and fled into the surrounding countryside.

Most of the fugitives were Eastern Europeans – mainly from Poland, Georgia, the Baltics and the states of former Yugoslavia.

No one was hurt in the jail break, during which most of the 200 inmates chose not to flee.

Opposition politicians have blamed the jail break on the antiquated prison, which dates from the 1850s. Construction of a new prison on the same site is scheduled to start in 2008.

Belgian Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx, who visited the Dendermonde prison, has ordered an investigation into the breakout.