French anti-terrorist police opened a formal inquiry on Wednesday into three tunnels discovered under La Santé, Paris’s main high-security jail, whose inmates range from millionaire society fraudsters and corrupt politicians to Islamic militants and Basque separatists.
The prison authorities said the tunnels, which ran beneath two of the prison’s watchtowers and its main entrance, seemed to be part of the network of historic catacombs and quarries which underlies large areas of the city.
”As far as we can tell they were sealed off with iron grates many years ago, but had recently been reopened and were being extended and widened,” a prison warders’ spokesperson said.
Two of the tunnels, between four and 17 metres below the prison, had been re-sealed, and La Santé’s most dangerous inmates transferred to other jails. Guards were alerted in early August after prisoners reported hearing suspicious noises.
A police spokesperson said experts were examining the tunnels, which were blocked when La Santé was being built in the mid-19th century. ”It’s impossible to say at present why they were re-opened and what the people in there were trying to do,” he said.
Officials said it was ”unlikely” that the tunnels were part of an escape attempt, since there were no vertical shafts connecting them to the prison.
An attack on the prison was more likely, he speculated. – Guardian Unlimited Â