The search for two fugitives who escaped from the Long Island prison last Monday continued on Cerf Island over the weekend and was still on at the time we went to press Sunday September 14.

The search, initiated early Tuesday morning (September 9), was being carried out  by a 115-member joint search party of Police and Seychelles People’s Defence Forces (SPDF) personnel.

According to Major Philip Barbe, the leader of SPDF team on Cerf Island, the escaped prisoners Antoine Joubert and Lambert Lauret had been cornered but low visibility due to bad weather and the island’s dense vegetation were causing delays in locating them.

Speaking to the press on Saturday Major Barbe said the fugitives were first spotted on Cerf early Tuesday morning and again on Wednesday but as they were too far away, they managed to escape into the forest.

Since then there had been no visual confirmations of the pair, Major Barbe said, but the SPDF had discovered places where they were suspected to have slept and ate.

“This is a very big island,” Major Barbe said. “By the look of it, you can say it’s small, but when you’re on it, that’s something different.”

However, Major Barbe indicated that the SPDF and police forces had cordoned the pair off to one end of the island. Explosives were being used, he said, to channel and confuse the fugitives, and also to clear some of the natural hiding places that the island offered.

Sub-inspector Sabry Khan, heading up the Police personnel on the island, said that police dogs had been brought in to aid the search, but were ineffective.  The fugitives had not left any clothes behind for the dogs to pick up a scent, and the police suspect that they had passed through the sea to throw the dogs off their trail.

But Sub-Inspector Khan said that it was “highly unlikely” that the fugitives escaped to Mahe or another island. The police, he said, have been monitoring Cerf’s coastline since Tuesday morning, and both had been spotted on the island since that time.

“We know they’re here, we know they’re hiding,” Sub Inspector Khan said.  “It’s just a matter of time (before they’re found).”

The police did not want to put a time frame on when that would be, but Sub-Inspector Khan said that residents on Cerf had told police that Lauret, when he escaped from Long Island in 1997, hid on Cerf for up to three months.  That information, he said, had not been confirmed yet.

Police suspect that Joubert and Lauret are planning to lie in wait to convince their pursuers that they had fled to another island, giving them a chance to escape when forces withdraw.

Sub-Inspector Khan said that in the meantime, SPDF and police personnel were taking extreme caution with the apprehension of Joubert and Lauret, due to residents being on the island.  Police officials were also regularly checking in with the residents to provide for their safety and the security of their homes.

No cases of break-ins had been reported as of Saturday, but Sub-inspector Khan said that on the night they escaped, Joubert and Lauret did steal a fuel tank for an outboard engine from a Cerf resident.

Sub-Inspector Khan said that residents on the island have been cooperative with police efforts.  Word spread quickly around the island Tuesday morning, he said, and some of Cerf’s residents, were on the lookout before SPDF and police forces arrived in force.

According to the police information, after stealing the fuel tank, the fugitives then reportedly attempted to steal a boat, but were driven away by the boat’s owner.

The fuel tank has not yet been recovered, Sub-Inspector Khan said.

Lauret and Joubert escaped from Long Island Prison, which is not far from Cerf Island, last Monday along with a third convict, Abdul Rafman Asswad, whose body was found by the Coast Guard floating in the sea near Cerf on Tuesday.  He is presumed to have drowned.

LINKS