JAKARTA: More than 100 inmates escaped from an Indonesian jail on Sumatra island on Saturday, police said, in the latest breakout to hit the country’s creaking prison system.
The prisoners fled the jail in Siak district on Sumatra island early in the morning after rioting and a fire broke out at the detention center.
Footage on local TV stations showed the facility engulfed in flames.
Authorities launched a massive manhunt and 115 prisoners had been recaptured by late morning, Riau province police chief Widodo Eko Prihastopo said.
Dozens of detainees from a prison population of more nearly 650 remained at large, he added.
“Police with assistance from the army and surrounding community are still searching for the rest,” Prihastopo said.
The rioting was triggered after guards beat several inmates who were caught using methamphetamine, police said.
Three detainees suffered stab wounds and a policeman was shot during the rioting, the local health office told AFP.
Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where inmates are often held in unsanitary conditions at overcrowded prisons.
There was a spate of breakouts in 2013, including one where about 150 prisoners — including terror convicts — escaped from a jail.
Indonesian police hunt inmates after mass prison break
Indonesian police hunt inmates after mass prison break
- The prisoners fled the jail in Siak district on Sumatra island after rioting and a fire
- Footage on local TV stations showed the facility engulfed in flames
Germany says UN rights rapporteur for Palestinian territories should quit
- Albanese has said that her comments are being falsely portrayed
- “I have never, ever, ever said ‘Israel is the common enemy of humanity’,” Albanese said
BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Thursday called for the resignation of the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, over comments she made allegedly targeting Israel at a conference.
“I respect the UN system of independent rapporteurs. However, Ms Albanese has made numerous inappropriate remarks in the past. I condemn her recent statements about Israel. She is untenable in her position,” Wadephul wrote on X.
Albanese has said that her comments are being falsely portrayed. She denounced what she called “completely false accusations” and “manipulation” of her words in an interview with broadcaster France 24 on Wednesday.
Speaking via videoconference at a forum in Doha on Saturday organized by the Al Jazeera network, Albanese referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticizing “most of the world” and much of Western media for enabling the “genocide” in Gaza.
“And this is a challenge — the fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support,” she said.
Albanese said that “international law has been stabbed in the heart” but added that there is an opportunity since “we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy.”
Wadephul’s French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Wednesday made the same call for Albanese to resign over the comments.
“France unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks made by Ms Francesca Albanese, which are directed not at the Israeli government, whose policies may be criticized, but at Israel as a people and as a nation, which is absolutely unacceptable,” Barrot told French lawmakers.
Albanese posted video of her comments to X on Monday, writing in the post that “the common enemy of humanity is THE SYSTEM that has enabled the genocide in Palestine, including the financial capital that funds it, the algorithms that obscure it and the weapons that enable it.”
In her interview with France 24, which was recorded before Barrot’s statement, she contended that her comments were being misrepresented.
“I have never, ever, ever said ‘Israel is the common enemy of humanity’,” Albanese told the broadcaster.
