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Police knew about Vlastos’ escape plan

15 December 2011 / 13:12:08  GRReporter
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Representatives of the Ministry of Citizen Protection admitted that for two months now, they have been aware of Panagiotis Vlastos’ plan to escape from prison with one of his accomplices in the abduction of shipbuilding magnate Pericles Panagopoulos. However, they failed to prevent the incident, which was the first news on Monday evening this week and due to which the prison in Korydallos became for an hour or more a scene of a Western involving prisoners and hostages. The attempt of the criminals was unsuccessful, but it has roused the spirits.

According to police data, the two initially suspected of conspiracy to escape communicated via mobile phone, while the scene with hostages was taking place. Vlastos’ friend whose name is not mentioned is serving a sentence for the abduction of Panagopoulos in the same wing of the prison and its guards know him for his other escape attempts. Moreover, he has proven connections with members of the terrorist organization Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, which took an active part in the attempted escape from prison on Monday.

At first, prison guards focused on the actions of the two criminals involved in the case of the shipbuilding magnate abduction. "Our concern had increased once the members of Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei started to be transferred to the A wing of the prison because of their required presence in the Court of Appeals," said a representative of the Ministry of Citizens Protection to Vima. A bit later, he recognized that the involvement of terrorists was an unpleasant surprise. The same ministry source explained that they had required the prison guards to be on the alert in order to prevent the fiasco of the helicopter escape of Vassilis Paleokostas and Alket Rizai a few years ago.

On the day of action, Panagiotis Vlastos had organized for unsuspecting relatives to visit him. The members of the terrorist organization Georgis and Michalis Nikolopoulos, Christos Tsakalos, Theophilos Mavropoulos and George Polydoros did the same. Thus, all involved ended up in the hall for visitors at the same time. Unlike other days, the visits on Monday were free and there was no glass barrier between the relatives of detainees and the prisoners themselves. The police report that Vlastos was armed (no one knew how) with a Glock pistol, and at least three of the terrorists had knives. The version is that they stole them from the prison kitchen, but there is no solid confirmation for now. There are two versions of how the pistol got into the hands of the prisoner. The first is that it was thrown through a hole in the fence into the yard of the building and the second is that a staff member or a visitor brought it inside. Visitors to the jail do not pass through the weight control process or a magnetic door in order to be checked whether they have guns, mainly because the visits generally take place behind a safety glass, which was missing this time.

 

Tags: Crime newsPrison in KorydallosAttempted escapePanagiotis VlastosKidnappingPerilikis PanagopoulosConspiracy of Fire Nuclei
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