Italy's "escape king" jail breaks again

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041015/80/f4obx.html


ROME (Reuters) - Italy's "escape king" Max Leitner has broken out of prison for a fourth time, staging his latest mystery jail-break overnight along with a Mafia arms trafficker.


Guards opened their cells on Friday morning to find only dummies, made of rags and cardboard, lying where the men should have been, Italian media reported.


Police said Leitner must have had outside help to make such a clean get-away.


Blushing prison officials in the northern Italian city of Bergamo refused to say how the 45-year-old professional thief and his latest partner in crime managed to escape.


Caught only a year ago hiding in a cornfield, Leitner had famously escaped from an Austrian prison after heist on an amoured car in 1990. Later captured by Italian police, he was quoted by media saying: "Austrian prisons are medieval. It's better in an Italian prison."


He escaped that time by tying bed sheets together and climbing out of a prison window.