Greek Court Gives Suspended Sentence Over Escape

A Greek court gave a prison guard a three-year suspended sentence for assisting a high-profile prisoner to escape by helicopter for the second time in three years, court officials said on Thursday.

The Hollywood-style getaway of Vassilis Palaiokostas, 44, and his Albanian accomplice Alket Rijai, who had escaped from the Athens jail once before in 2006 but were recaptured, has dealt a new blow to the conservative government hurt by riots and a ratings slump.

“The guard is sentenced to three years in prison for assisting Palaiokostas to get away, but the sentence is suspended,” said a court official who declined to be named. 

The guard was convicted for allowing the two men to meet in the prison courtyard from where they escaped. He has been suspended.

Greek media criticised the conservative government, already under pressure over the police shooting of a teenager that led to the worst riots in decades in December.

The main Socialist opposition, who had asked for the justice minister’s resignation over the escape, accused the government of not taking political responsibility.

Police arrested four prison guards and the helicopter pilot after Sunday’s embarrassing escape. The court official said the other four were pronounced innocent.

Palaiokostas was serving a sentence for robbery and kidnapping when he first escaped with Rijai in 2006 in a helicopter. He was arrested again in August and accused of organising the kidnapping of an industrialist.

On Sunday, a helicopter approached the roof of Greece’s maximum security prison, threw down a rope ladder and whisked the two convicts away as prison guards watched. The helicopter pilot said he had been hijacked.

The government said the operation would not have been successful without participation from the inside and announced measures to improve prison security including checks on guards’ income and a ban on mobile phones in jails.

The ruling conservatives, who are clinging to a one-seat parliamentary majority, have been rocked by a wave of protests as the economy slows amid the global crisis.