A twin brother and a quick change of clothes helped an 18-year-old sentenced for assault and robbery escape from jail, reports said on Tuesday.
The brothers set their plan in motion on Monday at the Kronoberg jail in Stockholm, the Aftonbladet newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The jailed brother was allowed an unsupervised visit from his twin brother. About 45 minutes later, the visitor left the jail while guards locked up what they believed to be the twin who was serving a sentence.
During the visit the identical twins apparently exchanged clothes — and identity, fooling the guards.
About an hour later, the wrongly jailed brother demanded to be released, claiming he was innocent. Red-faced prison officials established the escape after comparing fingerprints.
”We were fooled yesterday. It’s as simple as that,” Lars-Ake Pettersson, head of the jail, told Aftonbladet.
The twin who helped free his brother faces charges of aiding the escape, but was released in the meantime.
The newspaper reported that he was sentenced on December 12 to probation, and if the prison had known of that sentence the visit would not have been allowed.
”We made a check on December 6, and there was no entry then,” Pettersson said. — Sapa-DPA