Prison breakout at Kerevat seen as ‘biggest in region’

NIUGINI Islands Correctional Services acting commissioner Philip Eka has described the recent prison breakout at Kerevat as the biggest in the region.
Eka told The National following the escape of 41 prisoners from Kerevat prison in East New Britain that 13 had surrendered.
“We had 41 prisoners escape from Kerevat, they included 19 remandees who were awaiting their trials and 22 convicted prisoners, most of them charged with robbery, murder and sexual offences,” he said.
Eka said 80 per cent of those who escaped were from East New Britain, 20 per cent from other provinces and they were all high-risk prisoners.
“Their escape process was basically through digging an underground tunnel under the fence and the process had been taking place for a couple of days, maybe weeks, that was not detected,” he said.
“The two main reasons for the escape were there was no food supply and security was lacking.”
Eka said there were two sets of investigations to be conducted, one was the preliminary one from the institution and the other would be by the headquarters.