Inmate escapes from Duisburg-Hamborn JVA through sawn-through bars

In the Duisburg-Hamborn JVA, a 35-year-old prisoner escaped with a cinematic outburst. A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said it can now be safely assumed that the prisoner sawed through a bar in front of the window of his cell facing the inner courtyard. There was no trace of the man until early Sunday afternoon, as a spokesman for the Duisburg police confirmed. The search is ongoing.

Before the escape, the prisoner had made a hiding place in the floor of his cell - possibly for tools. "A clever hiding place," said the ministry spokesman. The cavity under the linoleum floor near a cell wall was apparently not noticed during cell inspections, but has now been discovered. There were no tools in the cavity. The man most likely sawed through the bars over a long period of time. In order to push open the fine bars in front of the window, he then used the cell table as a lever before the breakout, the spokesman said.

Then he apparently squeezed through the narrow gap and climbed over the inside of the facade onto the roof and then down the outside in an unknown way. The cell was on the third floor, the roof is above the fourth floor. The prison is located in the middle of the city and is not secured by an additional wall outside.

Convicted of burglary and theft

The fugitive had been in custody since February 10th on allegations of theft. At the end of May, he was sentenced to six years in prison for two residential burglaries that caused extensive damage, which has not yet been finalized, the authorities said. However, there is certainly criminal energy, according to judicial circles: the man is said to have stolen not only valuable jewelry during his burglaries, but also more than 200,000 euros in cash - which also explains the relatively high prison sentence.

The outbreak is putting North Rhine-Westphalia's Justice Minister Benjamin Limbach (Alliance 90/The Greens) under pressure. Limbach is already under criticism - among other things after allegations of corruption against prison employees, about which he is said to have informed too late.

Criticism of the Justice Minister from the opposition

»A prison bar doesn't disappear on its own. Justice Minister Limbach must explain how the man was able to get the necessary tools," demanded the opposition SPD parliamentary group. SPD MP Sonja Bongers said she doubted whether Limbach would still be able to correct security deficiencies in the NRW prison system in a timely manner. After the outbreak, Limbach brought a security expert from the ministry into the institution to investigate. "We will fully explain how this security gap could have arisen in order to immediately draw the necessary conclusions from the results," said the minister.

Classic escapes from closed prisons are extremely rare in North Rhine-Westphalia and, according to the ministry, have not happened for years - with the exception of one case in mid-June last year in the Bielefeld-Senne prison, when a prisoner first overcame a three-meter-high roller gate and then a wall. However, the case was not officially considered an outbreak, but rather an "escape" from open enforcement.

In 2024 there were 174 such cases of escapes or late returns from release - but no classic outbreak, said the justice spokesman. "We basically have a very escape-proof prison system, as you can see from the numbers," he said.