By Goth Mohamed Goth
The Head of Somaliland Custodial corps Brigadier General Mohamed Farah Hirane has for the first time spoken on the recent attempt Jail break revealing that they had in custody six suspected accomplices who are being investigated for smuggling in firearms.
The prison chief in an interview with SLNTV reporter Mr. Hamze Ali BulBul also thanked the public for the vigilance and in assisting law officers in the apprehension of the fugitives, adding that investigations are still on going and that the CID department have made headways in the investigations on how a firearm was able to be smuggled into the otherwise high security prison.
Gen Hirane added “We are currently holding a number of people who are suspected of aiding and abetting the convicts and as of now I can tell you the suspects are been questioned, we hope they choose to cooperate, we will have the answers we need, the answers we demand sooner than later. He has also directed authorities to increase security at prisons across the country.
So far, there is no indication that any Department of Corrections workers helped the inmates with their escape, but investigators are still looking at any possibilities of an inside job but if that was the case then the prison chief has some questions to answer.
Last week four convicts using smuggled in weapons killed one prison guard and seriously wounding two other during an attempted prison break, two whom were charged with Terror related crimes while the other two were convicted pirates.
Most of the inmates at the prison run by Somaliland custodial corps and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are serving time made piracy and terror related charges with roughly 12 of the Hargeisa prison’s inmates being members of Al Shabab.
Ironically, pirate prisons may also be generating new security risks. Pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are held in the same facilities as members of Al Shabab, the Somali group with ties to Al Qaida, and juveniles are housed alongside adults. That means there’s a very real risk that impressionable, disillusioned young men could be radicalized.
SomalilandPress.com
