Asia-Pacific News
Malaysian inmates escape drug rehabilitation centre
Jun 20, 2009, 6:01 GMT
Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian police have launched a search for some 30 inmates who escaped from a government-run drug rehabilitation centre following a riot, news reports said Saturday.
Several inmates at the facility in the northern Penang state had sparked a riot late Friday which lasted three hours, following which about 30 of the total 522 inmates could not be accounted for, state police chief Ayub Yaakob said.
Police have set up roadblocks at surrounding areas and have mounted a manhunt involving hundreds of officers, he said.
Police did not say what sparked off the riot, which resulted in three blocks of the centre being razed to the ground, the official Bernama news agency reported.
Ayub said the inmates have since been shifted to a nearby rehabilitation centre pending reconstruction of the building, adding that there were no casualties in Friday's incident.
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