Political Prisoners Tunnel to Freedom from Chile Jail

In a spectacular escape, 50 political prisoners--some accused in the 1986 assassination attempt against President Augusto Pinochet--fled jail through a carefully constructed 300-foot tunnel today.

Police said six escapees were captured shortly after the breakout was detected about 2:30 a.m. A seventh was caught by prison guards because he was too big to pass through the tunnel and became stuck at the mouth of it.

The prisoners built a tunnel about 1 1/2 feet high and about 300 feet long, extending from the Santiago Public Jail beneath a street to an unused railroad station, police said.

Most of the escapees were members of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, an armed branch of the Communist Party. Military prosecutors had sought death sentences for seven of the prisoners for their role in the Sept. 7, 1986, attack on Pinochet’s caravan that left five bodyguards dead.

In a call to a radio station, a person identifying himself as a spokesman for the escapees said, “After years of unjust imprisonment, of systematic violation of the right to due process, of scorn and violation of all our rights and brutal tortures, today we recovered our freedom.”

In a second statement to Santiago news media, five of the escapees said 24 prisoners helped dig the tunnel, starting in early 1989.

The tunnel went between the street next to the jail and a subway line underneath and was equipped with a system of electrical lighting and ventilation and a “rail” system to remove the dirt from excavation, the statement said.

The statement said the 24 who built the tunnel went through first,and it was then available to any who wanted to follow.