by Paul Simpson
Suicide bombers paved the way for another Taliban attack, this time at Tasfirat prison in Tikrit on 27 September, killing sixteen guards and freeing around 102 inmates. A plan to free prisoners the previous April had been foiled, but this time a group of gunmen was ready to storm the prison to liberate their comrades. They also destroyed personnel files, and stole papers which identified informers. Weapons had been brought into the prison during family visits, and the authorities were certain that some warders had deliberately left some locks open. Twenty-three prisoners were caught within twenty-four hours of the raid.
Sources:
Washington Post, 24 August 2005: “In Iraq Jail, Resistance Goes Underground”
New York Times, 14 June 2008: “Taliban Free 1,200 Inmates in Attack on Afghan Prison”
Daily Telegraph, 15 June 2008: “How Taliban sprang 450 terrorists from Kandahar’s Sarposa prison in Afghanistan”
New York Times, 25 September 2009: “Qaeda Members Escape Prison in Iraq”
CNN, 26 September 2009: “Death row Iraqis among 8 escapees recaptured”
Washington Post, 28 November 2009: “Inmates escape prison in western Afghanistan”
New York Times, 18 July 2010: “Prison Break Precedes Afghan Conference”
BBC News, 14 January 2011: “Iraq seeks militants after Basra jail breakout”
Reuters, 14 January 2011: “Twelve insurgents escape from prison in Iraq’s Basra”
IraqiNews.com, 7 July 2011: “Judiciary had not charged any officer with Basra prison escape last year, official says”
Christian Science Monitor, 25 April 2011: “Taliban tunnel: Five prison escapes in Iraq, Afghanistan”
Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2011: “Hundreds of Taliban escape from Kandahar jail”
The Guardian, 25 April 2011: “Taliban tunnel breakout outwits Afghan jailers”
The Guardian, 25 April 2011: “Afghanistan’s great escape: how 480 Taliban prisoners broke out of jail”
Daily Mail, 25 April 2011: “500 Taliban prisoners freed through Great Escape-style tunnels in Afghanistan”
al-Šumid (Steadfastness), 5th year, volume 60, Jumada al-Thaniya 1432AH/May-June 2011} “Kandahar Prison Escape: the Taliban’s Tale” (translated at http://www.alexstrick.com/2011/05/kandahar-prison-escape-the-talibans-tale/)
CNN, 15 April 2012: “384 prisoners escape after Taliban raid on Pakistan prison”
BBC News, 15 April 2012: “Militants free hundreds in attack on Pakistan jail”
AllVoices News, 15 April 2012: “Nearly 400 prisoners fled Bannu jail after Taliban’s pre-dawn raid”
Associated Press, 8 June 2012: “Fourteen criminals, Taliban militants escape prison in N Afghanistan”
Tolonews, 22 August 2012: “Authorities Deny Pul-e-Charkhi Prison Break Saying Guards Foiled Attempt”
Afterword
A spot-check of Google News on 28 November 2012 reveals that in New Orleans the day before, a trio of prisoners were recaptured after injuring themselves on razor-wire during their flight. Dozens of prisoners escaped from Tete Provincial Prison in Mozambique on Sunday 25 November, after sabotaging the electricity supply and plunging the compound into darkness. Three inmates went on the run from Kamfinsa prison in Zambia the same day. A week earlier in India, four remand prisoners stabbed a warder, scaled the Kochi prison wall and escaped. Around the same time, in Jackson County, Oregon, a convicted bank robber was able to stand on another prisoner’s shoulders, remove some metal mesh from a roof covering, and jump into a nearby tree. The trees have been cut down; despite a $6,000 reward there is no sign yet of Bradley William Monical . . .
Even if prisons are built like the ones that John Carpenter envisaged in his movies Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. (where Manhattan Island and Los Angeles respectively are turned into federal penitentiaries), the men and women incarcerated there will try to escape. As Emmanuel Goldstein said, “The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape.”
Appendix: The Philosophy of Escape
“If someone is determined to escape, it will be difficult to prevent him from doing so without making life virtually impossible for all concerned. There is room for a great deal of research and thought into the main factors which make people want to escape. In many cases a prisoner will make a cold and rational estimate of the position and will then decide whether or not it is worth taking the risk. Perhaps, in that sort of case, we must accept that one needs to watch him like a lynx. If a man is given such a long sentence and in such conditions that he has nothing to hope for, one cannot be surprised if he breaks out.
“The second category is comprised of those to whom the possibility of escape presents a challenge. Anyone who has read The Prisoner of Zenda or even Huckleberry Finn will know the feeling that exists in all of us, particularly when reading about these matters or when reading stories about escapes from prisoner-of-war camps. I believe that these feelings are sometimes projected into escapes from Her Majesty’s Prisons. With the right kind of prisoner, one possible way of dealing with the problem would be to remove the challenge by offering him open conditions. Any challenge having been removed, there are certain types of prisoner who would no longer be impelled to escape.
“The third group comprises two categories of men. There is the man with a genuine or imaginary ‘beef’, because he is really innocent or because of something which has happened inside the prison. The other category is the man with a personal problem, possibly to whom some kind friend has indicated that his wife is carrying on with a neighbour. Unless he can be satisfied in some way, he will be impelled to break out.
“Then there is the man who is unable to resist temptation, and who, if he sees the hole to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) referred, cannot resist walking through it. In that case, clearly the only satisfactory safeguard is to make sure that there are no holes of that kind left accidentally.”
– Peter Archer, MP for Rowley Regis and Tipton, 16 February 1967, in the House of Commons debate following the escape of George Blake from Wandsworth Prison, and the Great Train Robbers. Extracted from Hansard
Acknowledgements
My grateful thanks to the many people who suggested stories for this book, and especially all those who checked out the histories of their part of the world for me to provide some of the more obscure tales contained in these pages: Brian J. Robb, Andy Frankham-Allen, Adina Mihaela Roman, and Patricia Hyatt.
My thanks also to:
Duncan Proudfoot for commissioning this in the first place, and for helping to ease the burden a little to allow real life to continue; and my copyeditor Gabriella Nemeth, who once again saved me from some idiocies of my own making.
Revd Clay Knowles for background information on St John of the Cross’ escape.
Michael, our guide in Berlin at Easter 2012, who showed us round the route of the Wall, and shared stories about the escapes, many of which feature in this book.
Brian J. Robb again for wading through the material and providing some pithy comments which helped to focus the book.
The staff of The Laptop Workshop in Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath (http://www.laptopworkshop.com/) who were able to get me back up and running within 36 hours. (And to the maintainers of Dropbox for the secure facility that made sure nothing was lost!)
The librarians at the Hassocks branch of the West Sussex Public Library. I say this in every book, but it continues to be key: great as the internet is, it will never replace libraries, and I am grateful to the team for their help in tracking down some of the more obscure books needed for this volume.
Lee Harris, Amanda Rutter, Caitlin Fultz, Scott Pearson, and Clare Hey for providing other avenues while this was ongoing, and to the members of ASCAT church choir, All the Right Notes choir, and the Hurst Singers for the musical outlets.
Finally, and most importantly, my partner Barbara and daughter Sophie for their love and support, and for letting me disappear into the office to get this completed �
� and our terriers, Rani and Rodo, who have finally got the message about the correlation between desk, computer and staying quiet!