A “very dangerous” British prisoner escaped from a high-security prison in Portugal on Sunday morning using a ladder and homemade rope.
Mark Cameron Roscaleer was serving a nine-year sentence for kidnap and robbery when he broke out of the Vale de Judeus jail, about 40 miles north of Lisbon, with four other inmates.
Four of the five escapees are “dangerous” and “violent” men who “will do anything to remain free,” including putting human lives at risk, said Luís Neves, the director of the Portuguese judicial police.
The men were serving sentences for crimes including violent robbery, drug trafficking and organised crime. The public has been warned not to approach them.
The five, who along with 39-year-old Roscaleer, include an Argentinian and a Georgian national, received “external help” to execute their escape, authorities said.
The Portuguese prison service (DGRSP) reported that accomplices from outside the prison provided the men with a ladder that “allowed the inmates to scale the wall”.
“They managed to jump a fence because there are no guards to watch the perimeter… put the ladder against the wall and, from there, with a handmade rope, they climbed over the wall”, said Frederico Morais, president of Portugal’s national prison guards’ union.
Mr Neves said the escape was a “complex operation by organised criminals with financial capacity [with] everything thought out down to the smallest detail”.
Manuel Vieira, deputy secretary general of the Portuguese internal security system, said that the authorities of the Schengen area, Interpol and Europol had all been alerted, but no emergency closure of Portugal’s borders would take place for the moment.
“We are currently quite comfortable with the circulation of information both nationally and internationally. We are doing everything that can be done,” Mr Vieira said.
Of Roscaleer’s fellow escapees, two Portuguese men were serving the longest sentences of 25 years, including 61-year-old Fernando Ribeiro Ferreira, jailed for crimes including robbery and kidnapping.
The other inmates who escaped are Fábio Fernandes Santos Loureiro, a 33-year-old Portuguese man, Rodolf José Lohrmann, a 59-year-old Argentinian, and 40-year-old Shergili Farjiani, originally from Georgia and who is considered the least dangerous of the gang.
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