Corfu prisoners tunnel out

ATHENS - Prisoners in a Corfu high security jail dug a 100 yard secret tunnel during 10 days of riots over prison conditions …

ATHENS - Prisoners in a Corfu high security jail dug a 100 yard secret tunnel during 10 days of riots over prison conditions and staged a mass jailbreak, police sources said yesterday.

First reports put at 60 the number of mainly Albanian convicts who wriggled along the escape route late on Saturday to a school opposite, but the number was in fact only 44, according to regional official George Raftopulos.

By yesterday morning riot squads scouring the Ionian Sea island had recaptured 12 and were searching for the others, while the rest of the prisoners gave up their protest and returned to their cells.