2 Officers, 9 Guards Arrested Day after 5 Inmates Escaped Roumieh Prison

State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr ordered the arrest of two officers and nine guards on Sunday after spending the night along with his assistants at Roumieh prison to investigate the escape of five inmates.

Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi had asked judicial authorities to investigate with top officers and low-ranking officials at the prison to determine who was responsible behind the escape.

An Nahar daily said Qortbawi urged a non-stop probe given that Monday is an official holiday.

The minister told the Central News Agency that a meeting that will be held at the Grand Serail on Tuesday will discuss the transfer of the authority of Lebanese prisons from the interior to the justice ministry as approved by the cabinet.

Premier Najib Miqati’s sources confirmed that a meeting will be held at the Serail between the prime minister, Qortbawi and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel. The meeting was scheduled to take place before Saturday’s incident, they said.

But the prison break increased the importance of the meeting, the sources told An Nahar.

The five inmates, that include Fatah al-Islam terrorist network members, escaped the prison on Saturday by scaling down the building's walls with bed sheets before mixing with visiting relatives and walking out of the compound with them, Charbel said.

Charbel blamed the escape on "the pure negligence" of the guards and demanded that officers who were in charge when the jail break took place be punished.

The five prisoners are Midhat Hasan Khalil Ahmed, a Jordanian born in1963; Abdullah Saad el-Dine al-Shukri, a Syrian born in 1984; Abdel-Aziz Ahmed al-Masri, a Syrian born in 1985; Mohammed Abdel-Nasser Abdel-Dusari, a Kuwaiti born in 1973 and Abdel-Nasser Said Sanger, 31.

The Internal Security Forces said that a sixth prisoner, Walid Issam Lababidi, a 31-year-old Lebanese, was caught while trying to escape with the other five inmates.

However, the army command issued a statement late Saturday saying it arrested Midhat Hasan Khalil Ahmed in northern Lebanon after launching a large-scale search operation for the fugitives backed by military helicopters.

The army said it was "continuing the search for the rest of the fugitives to arrest them and hand them over to involved authorities."