Four foreign inmates break out of Bali jail through hole in wall

Four foreign inmates escaped early yesterday from a prison on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, police said.

Prison officers became aware of the escape while conducting a morning check of inmates at the Kerobokan penitentiary in Bali’s capital, Denpasar, said Putu Ika Prabawa, an officer at Bali’s Kuta Utara police station.

Mr Prabawa said the four men were believed to have escaped through a 50-by70cm hole found in a wall that connects to a 15-metre-long water tunnel heading toward a main street.

He identified the four escapees as Shaun Edward Davidson, 33, of Australia; Dimitar Nikolov Iliev, 43, of Bulgaria; Sayed Mohammed Said, 31, of India; and Tee Koko King bin Tee Kim Sai, 50, of Malaysia.

Davidson is serving a oneyear sentence for an immigration offence, while Iliev is serving a seven-year sentence for money laundering and another offence.

Said and King are serving 14 and seven years, respectively, for drug offences.

Mr Prabawa said police have distributed pictures of the escaped inmates to police stations across Bali.

Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where overcrowding has become a problem in prisons that are struggling to cope with poor funding and an influx of people arrested in a war on drugs.

Most prisoners in the country have been convicted on drug charges.

Last week, dozens of inmates escaped from an overcrowded prison in western Indonesia after floods caused a wall to collapse.

Torrential rain overnight inundated homes and buildings in Jambi, the capital of Jambi province on Sumatra island.

Last month, more than 440 prisoners escaped from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island when they were let out of their cells to take part in Friday Muslim prayers.

In December last year a dozen armed men on motorcycles attacked a prison in central Mali, freeing prisoners and leaving at least one guard dead. The attack, which bore similarities to other raids launched by al-qaeda-linked jihadists in the region, took place near the town of Niono in the Segou region. In November a similar assault on the town of Banamba saw detainees were freed when extremists attacked the prison.

In July 2013, about 240 prisoners, including several convicted terrorists, escaped during a deadly riot at a prison in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province. 0 A local journalist inspects the exit hole of a tunnel dug by escapees by the perimeter wall of the Kerobokan prison