Five inmates, including a Briton, an Argentinian and a Georgian, as well as two Portuguese, escaped from the high-security prison in the town of Valle de Judeus, 30 km north of the Portuguese capital Lisbon, Reuters reported, citing Portuguese authorities.
According to the Portuguese prison service, the men, aged between 33 and 61, escaped yesterday at 10:00 a.m. local time with outside help by lowering a ladder, which allowed the inmates to scale the prison wall and to go outside". Police were immediately dispatched to capture the escapees, the message also said.
The two Portuguese men were serving 25-year sentences for crimes including drug trafficking, criminal association, theft, robbery and kidnapping, the prison service said. The other three were convicted of such crimes as theft, kidnapping and robbery.
The Valle de Judeus prison's website says it is high security with a capacity of 560 inmates.
Two prisoners who escaped from a guarded medical facility in Bavaria were captured in Turkey on August 30, DPA reported, citing BTA, citing the police.
The couple escaped with two other inmates from the district hospital in Straubing, northeast of Munich, on August 17. The other two men have already been captured in Austria.
Police said one of the escaped prisoners was seen at a migration center in the Turkish city of Edirne, near Turkey's border with Bulgaria and Greece. Officers checked his identity and found that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. He was accompanied by another man, who police later learned was the fourth fugitive, they said.
One of the two prisoners, a 31-year-old Bosnian, was deported back to Germany yesterday morning and taken to a Bavarian prison. The deportation of the second man, a 27-year-old Kosovo citizen, is still under review, police said.
The prosecutor's office and the criminal investigation department are investigating the four prisoners on suspicion of taking hostages and inflicting grievous bodily harm.
They were in prison for crimes related to illegal confiscation of property and drug trafficking, according to the police.