China starts manhunt after jailbreak: state media
BEIJING (AFP) - – China has launched a massive manhunt for four prisoners who broke out of jail in the north of the country after kidnapping and killing a guard, state media reported Monday.
The four, all in their twenties, escaped on Saturday from a prison in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia region, the official China Daily newspaper reported.
More than 6,000 armed and regular police have launched a region-wide search to find the escaped prisoners -- two of whom had been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, a sentence normally commuted to life in prison, the report said.
Police set up more than 150 checkpoints in Hohhot, and were stopping all vehicles travelling in and out of the city in a bid to find the culprits.
According to notices released on the Ministry of Public Security's website, one of those sentenced to death had committed theft while the other was given the death penalty for intentional injury.
The other two had been sentenced to life in prison for robbery.
The official Beijing News reported that the four prisoners were working in the prison when they killed the guard, and tied up another policeman they came across.
One of them dressed up in the policeman's clothes and managed to get out of jail with the others following. They then hijacked a taxi and drove off, the report said.
Three of the prisoners were ethnic Han Chinese and one of them was from the Mongolian ethnic minority, a report on state television said.