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Helicopter Escape at Greek Prison Foiled

Greek killer's helicopterGreek Justice Minister Antonis Roupakiotis said on Feb. 25  that authorities had been warned that crime boss Panayiotis Vlastos would try to escape from Trikala prison in central Greece, giving them time to stop the dramatic break attempt in which a gun-firing helicopter was prevented from swooping into the yard.
Armed men attempted to help Vlastos break out from the jail the day before as they exchanged gun fire with prison guards, who prevented the noted crime boss from getting out. Some 500 shots were fired, forcing the helicopter to touch down outside the prison.
Three men, a Greek, a Romanian and an Albanian, were arrested. They were armed with a Kalaskinov assault rifle and two Uzi submachine gun, authorities said, according to the newspaper Kathimerini and media reports.
The helicopter’s pilot and engineer were also taken in for questioning. Vlastos was injured during the escape. He climbed onto a rope ladder thrown from the helicopter but fell from a height of about five meters, some 16 feet. “We had information that there were some jails we needed to keep an eye on, including Trikala prison,” Roupakiotis told Mega TV.
Vlastos is serving a life sentence for his involvement in the so-called “crime syndicate,” which was responsible for a range of felonies, including blackmail, kidnapping and murder. Vlastos attempted to escape from Korydallos prison in December 2011, when he took hostages, but he gave in. Sunday’s attempted escape was the third time that a helicopter has been used in a prison breakout in Greece.
In 2006 and 2009, serial robber Vassilis Palaiocostas and his accomplice, contract killer Alket Rizai, successfully escaped from Korydallos prison in a helicopter. Rizai was recaptured a few months later but Palaiocostas is still at large.
Authorities said that the plot was foiled when the prisoner was shot at and the helicopter was forced to land in the prison’s car park. The chartered helicopter first tried to rip off the chicken-wire fence surrounding the prison with a hook dangling from a rope. When that didn’t work, a rope was lowered to whisk away Vlastos.
Another prisoner, an unnamed Albanian national also in the courtyard at the time, may have been part of the escape plan. The armed passengers used AK-47 assault rifles to fire on the prison guards. One guard, who was inside a post, was slightly injured by shards of flying glass. He and others returned fire, injuring Vlastos, who had managed to climb into the helicopter, as well as the helicopter’s technician.
The Greek Ministry of Justice said the helicopter passengers also carried “improvised explosive devices” but did not use them. Authorities said Vlastos was wounded in the legs and was being treated in the prison hospital. The technician suffered a minor hand injury. It was not immediately clear if the pilot and flight technician had willingly taken part in the escape attempt or had been forced to fly to the prison.
It was also unclear whether the second would-be escapee was part of the scheme or just happened to be in the courtyard and tried to take advantage of the situation. The helicopter was hired from a western Athens suburb and was supposed to fly to Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. However, it deviated from its flight path to head to the prison, the Associated Press reported.
Vlastos was first arrested in 1994 over the murder of two members of a rival criminal gang. He was convicted last year as the behind-the-bars mastermind of the kidnapping of the shipping tycoon Pericles Panagopoulos who was was kidnapped in January 2009 and released after eight days, when a ransom of 30 million euros ($39.8 million) was paid.
While awaiting trial for the kidnapping, Vlastos tried to escape from Korydallos prison in December 2011 with three members of the armed anarchist group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire. The four used a pistol and knives to take hostage three prison guards and 25 visiting relatives of other prisoners.

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