Interpol alerts police on 9 ‘dangerous’ Iraqi jail escapees

MANILA, Philippines—The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has alerted the Philippine National Police to be on the lookout for nine “dangerous” death convicts who escaped from jail in Iraq, police said Tuesday.

PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr. said that an Interpol Orange notice was sent to the Manila Interpol National Central Bureau secretariat recommending “appropriate preventive measures among police and border control units” against nine “dangerous convicted criminals” who haven’t been recaptured after escaping from Duhok Prison in Kurdistan region, Iraq, last January 7. Eleven prisoners escaped but two of them were recaptured.

Interpol identified the fugitives as Abdul Aziz Yousif Said, Khalid Ahmded Abdul Aziz, Firhad Safer Abdullah, Ali Hussein Salih, Mahdi Salih Ibrahim, Fraidon Latif Sharif, Dawood Sulaiman Ibrahim, Mohammed Ahmed Ali and Ismat Sharif Redhwan. Interpol said that they escaped by digging an 80-meter-long tunnel.

It added that the prisoners did not leave any traces of how they dug the tunnel.

“The fugitives are considered as dangerous to civilians and law enforcement officers,” the Interpol notice said.

Cruz Jr. said that Police Director Samuel Diciano, PNP director for investigation and detective management, circulated a memorandum to all police regional offices and national support units to disseminate the Interpol fugitive alert to local PNP units throughout the country.

He said that the global alert was issued by the Interpol General Secretariat in Lyon, France, to all 181 Interpol-member countries worldwide via Interpol’s global communication system.