Spain’s National Police have arrested a fugitive nicknamed the “escape master” in the city of Tarragona, capping a manhunt for a man wanted under a European arrest warrant issued by Italian authorities. His record, police say, includes breakouts from prisons in Terni and Parma in Italy as well as from a jail in Belgium.
His methods have been as audacious as his nickname suggests. In his most recent escape, in December, he got out of a high-security Italian prison by sawing through the bars of a window and climbing down the building on knotted bedsheets, according to police. During an earlier escape in Belgium, he is said to have scaled a prison wall after forming a human pyramid with other inmates.
Officers eventually traced him to a neighbourhood in Tarragona where they believed he was living. When they moved in to make the arrest, he resisted, and several people with him tried to stop the officers. One of those individuals is said to have injured two officers during the confrontation.
At the time of his capture, the fugitive was carrying false identity documents and two 500-euro notes that may be counterfeit, police said. Officers regard him as “dangerous” but have not released his identity or the offences for which he had been serving a sentence.
Following the arrest, a judge ordered that he be remanded in custody without bail while his extradition to Italy is processed. The case is a reminder of how a single fugitive can move across borders within Europe, and of how the European arrest warrant is used to return suspects to the country where they are wanted.
