The Department of Correctional Services has deployed a team of investigators to probe the possibility of a syndicate assisting prisoners to escape from the Middledrift and St Albans prisons in the Eastern Cape.
Spokesperson Zukisa Nduneni on Friday said a highly experienced team from the department’s investigation unit was deployed at Middledrift after the escape of two prisoners on Tuesday.
The two were serving life sentences for murder, attempted murder, armed robbery and possession of unlicensed firearms.
It is alleged that the two were assisted by corrupt prison officials.
”Three members of the Department of Correctional Services employed at the Middledrift Prison have so far been suspended pending an investigation into their alleged involvement in the smuggling of firearms into the prison and assisting the two offenders to escape,” Nduneni said.
Four accomplices have been arrested.
The department was also pursuing the recommendations of a second investigation that was instituted following the escape of 10 prisoners from Middledrift in 2002.
”Six officials based at the Middledrift Prison are to be charged with corruption and aiding offenders to escape, whilst criminal charges will also be pressed in due course.”
Nduneni said the department would act on video footage from close-circuit television monitors that revealed acts of corruption committed by correctional officials.
The footage included the smuggling of illegal items, among them firearms, as well as sexual encounters between offenders and officials.
”In progressively closing in on all acts of negligence, corruption and laxity in adherence to security measures, we are aware of even the existence of pictures of an inmate who is posing with a firearm inside our facilities,” Nduneni said.
”We believe these acts are thwarting the integrity of correctional services as a security institution.”
The inquiry will be spread to prisons all over the country. — Sapa