Four inmates awaiting trial for offences ranging from drugs to violence escaped from Kandal provincial prison for about an hour before police tracked them all down and apprehended them again on August 7, according to Kandal prison director Chat Sineang.

Sineang said the inmates will be charged with additional flagrant offences for their attempted escape.

Sineang told The Post that three of the inmates who escaped briefly are gang members who had been charged with drug crimes along with one middle-aged inmate charged with a violent crime.

They had just been sent to the prison about a week prior and all of them were still in quarantine.

He said that when prison officials took them to the gym on August 7, they used the opportunity to break through the barbed wire fence and escape from the prison, but they were quickly tracked down.

“Of the inmates who escaped, we immediately caught three of them. But the inmate who was charged with violence ran and hid on the roof of a house. Prison officials worked with the police and the community for nearly an hour and were able to arrest him,” he said

He continued that after re-arresting them he reported the situation to the prosecutor because escape from custody is a flagrant offence and the four will be sentenced by the court for their actions if convicted in addition to any sentences handed down for their existing charges.

“I suggested that the prosecutor let us build case files on them so he can prosecute the escape as an additional offence, which may add years to their prison sentences,” Sineang said.