Daring Prison Break Thwarted in Roumieh

A massive escape attempt from Roumieh prison has been thwarted after guards found ropes linking the observation tower to the facility's outer wall, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

NNA said that the inmates had lowered four 17-meter ropes from the tower to the outer wall of the building where convicts are incarcerated.

The prisoners had also cut the iron barriers that separate the building and the tower, which meant that the escape route was open and the operation was in its last stages, NNA added.

Judge Fadi Zaenni headed to Roumieh to investigate the incident and guards launched a headcount to check if anyone had managed to escape.

Last month, guards thwarted an attempt by around 20 Fatah al-Islam inmates to escape from Roumieh, the oldest and largest of Lebanon's overcrowded prisons.

They had cut iron bars at the prison's library and were seeking to dig a hole in the wall of the workshop that had been burned in previous riots when the plot was uncovered.

The military tribunal charged in November a Lebanese man and two Syrians with helping three Fatah al-Islam inmates escape from the same prison.

The three men were also charged with facilitating a prison break attempt by another inmate, who was planning to wear a black Islamic veil and climb down using a rope from bloc B where the Islamist inmates are incarcerated.

In October, a scandal erupted after it was reported that three Fatah al-Islam prisoners fled the jail the month before.

In another major prison break from Roumieh, five inmates from the terror network managed to escape in August 2011.