Police are investigating how three sentenced prisoners at the Vereeniging prison in the Vaal Triangle acquired a firearm they used in an abortive attempt to escape on Thursday this week.
Gauteng correctional services spokesperson Isaac Mosiane said three armed men held up a prison warder and stripped him of his clothes, which one of the men dressed in and tried to pass himself off as a guard.
Mosiane said the gun aimed at the warder was not a correctional service-issue weapon, and that warders are not allowed to be in possession of firearms when in contact with prisoners inside jails.
The prisoners fired randomly as they made their way out of the prison section where they were held, killing a prisoner and injuring two others.
The men proceeded to the jail arsenal, where they took two other firearms, Mosiane said.
The men were eventually overpowered by prison warders and police, who heard the gunshots and arrived at the scene.
According to Mosiane, the armed prisoners are currently in the medium-security section, but the head of prison will decide where they will be held after police have interrogated them. He said police had recovered three firearms from the prisoners’ previous cells.
The names of the convicts who attempted to escape and of those who were injured and killed will not be released until the former are charged and the next-of-kin of the latter are informed.
Mosiane said the attempted jailbreak was the first since 1999, when several prisoners successfully fled from the Vereeniging jail.
Police will be investigating attempted murder, escape and illegal possession of firearms.