Six months jail for escaping custody

A Tunisian man was yesterday jailed for six months after he admitted to escaping from police custody when he jumped out of a bathroom window at St Luke's Hospital last Friday morning.

Before handing down judgement, Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima heard Police Inspector Dennis Theuma explain how Murad G.M. Erhuma, 24, was being investigated for alleged importation of heroin and cannabis.

Erhuma was taken to hospital for treatment and on Friday morning he asked a police officer to remove his handcuffs as he needed to go to the bathroom. The officer did so and when Erhuma went to the bathroom he jumped out of the window, one-and-a-half storeys above ground level, and fled.

Magistrate Padovani Grima noted that Erhuma had not assaulted or injured anyone in order to escape and therefore his escape was a simple one. For this reason she jailed him for six months which, she explained, was the minimum jail term possible.

Police Inspectors Dennis Theuma and Geoffrey Azzopardi prosecuted.