Mexico detains 16 guards over prison break
MEXICO CITY. September 20. KAZINFORM A local judge Wednesday ordered the detention of 16 prison guards in connection with Monday's mass prison break at a northern Mexican jail along the border with the U.S. state of Texas, Xinhua said.
The prison's director and 15 guards are to be detained for 40 days while prosecutors investigate their possible role in the escape, the Coahuila state attorney general's office said in a statement.
After taking testimony from the guards, Coahuila state prosecutor Homero Ramos said investigators were looking into the possibility that several inmates escaped through the prison's gate with the help of the guards.
Coahuila's Public Security Secretary Jorge Luis Moran indicated at a press conference that recaptured inmates "confirm the hypothesis that inmates escaped through the main gate and that there was total complicity, collusion and betrayal on the part of prison employees."
Moran said the majority of the escaped inmates had connections with the Zetas drug cartel, and its leaders, with the help of the prison staff, had arranged the jailbreak.
State police officers were attacked by gunmen with high-caliber weapons and grenades when they tried to reach the prison immediately after the escape, raising suspicions that the Zetas were involved, he added.
A large-scale manhunt for the inmates has so far captured two, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday, adding they were seized Tuesday driving a pickup truck about 60 km from the prison.
Monday's escape took place in the border city of Piedras Negras where 131 inmates fled the jail. Several prison escapes have taken place over the last few years in Mexico.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned the escape, saying it exposed "vulnerability" of the state prison system. He noted that over 1,000 inmates have escaped over the last six years.