THE IMPOSSIBLE ESCAPE:

A Botswana Prison warder stationed at Gerald Estates, who pleaded for anonymity to avoid possible reprimand, gave an account of what could have possibly aided the escape of the prisoners last week.

Central to his theory is the vulnerability of prison warders caused by the desire to make extra cash because of their low wages. Some warders he says, have been known to accede to the demands of some prisoners who then direct prison officials to people outside, who will reward them with a lot of money for their help. It is for this reason that he believes the promise of cash could have softened the security systems that were meant to ensure the prisoners remain locked away at the holding facility.

He revealed that a new-recruit warder is paid B2/3 scale or roughly P2800-00 a month while those in higher notches can go as high as P3200. For most of them, he says, this is very little money that is often outmatched significantly by what the criminals inside would promise them. He says given the security detail at the facility, no matter how limited, there is no chance the prisoners would have gone unnoticed.

He narrated: “Gerald Centre for Illegal Immigrants, from where the prisoners escaped, is a small open space which is easily manageable than the Francistown Central Prison which has a lot of buildings around it.

“The huge building housing the two dormitories for the prisoners is located inside a highly-secured fence.   The only other small buildings are toilets which are situated on the western side of the enclosure and just behind the toilets roughly 20 metres away is a post for armed guards who are deployed there 24 hours. “On the northern side of the same enclosure inside the building housing illegal immigrants and female prisoners is a high tower which has armed guards on duty monitoring any movements by prisoners and the corner of the southern part of the enclosure where it meets the western portion is another post where armed guards are posted 24 hours to monitor the situation.

“On the southern part of the enclosure are offices and the kitchen, and this side is out of bounds for prisoners to have used it unnoticed as there is always a lot of movement,” the warder explained.

He continued that apart from the armed guards manning all the four corners of the prison, there are some prison officers who are posted inside the fence housing inmates and he wondered where they would have been at the time the prisoners made their escape in broad daylight. “This obviously was an inside job, and could have been planned days earlier. Perhaps the warders had received a lot of money in exchange for the freedom of probably one or two of those on the run while the rest may have taken advantage of the loophole to escape as well,” the officer said.

Botswana Prisons Northern Divisional Commander Senior Commissioner Sekano Sekano was also at pains to explain how the prisoners might have escaped under the hawk’s eye watch of prison officers who were on duty on that day. “We are aware that there were officers who were on duty on that fateful day to make sure that prisoners are well-looked after and it is still baffling us as to how the prisoners hatched such a plan and succeeded despite that there were armed sentries on duty on that day.”

Sekano is disappointed that as a department mandated with the rehabilitation of prisoners, their various centres have no surveillance cameras to monitor the movement of inmates to avoid such instances. He however promised to carry an internal investigation to find out if there was collusion between warders and inmates during the mass escape.

Sekano revealed that a team of warders, police officers and soldiers have managed to capture Scelo Banda and Mlindeli Moyo, who are each facing a murder charge, in Masingwaneng village on their way to illegally cross the border into Zimbabwe. Another escapee Methuli Sibanda charged for possession of ivory was nabbed in Tati Siding village where he was hiding. Sekano declined to give further details into their search and capture, fearing it could jeopardise their continuing investigations.