Trinidad: Escaped prisoner caught at J’Ouvert party

(Trinidad Guardian) Af­ter two days on the run, prison es­capee Dil­lon Clarke has been re­cap­tured dur­ing J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in Ari­ma on Sat­ur­day.

Clarke, 34 of Mt Zion Road, Ma­tu­ri­ta Vil­lage, Ari­ma was held by of­fi­cers along Hol­lis Av­enue dur­ing the street par­ty.

 
Clarke es­caped from the Gold­en Grove Prison, Arou­ca on Au­gust 8, while out on an agri­cul­tur­al project with oth­er in­mates.

Po­lice and prison au­thor­i­ties had searched sev­er­al ar­eas at Arou­ca, Trinci­ty, Orop­une, Pi­ar­co and Mal­oney since Clarke’s es­cape on Thurs­day but he man­aged to elude cap­ture.

Clarke was re­port­ed­ly work­ing on the agri­cul­tur­al project near the prison grounds when he bolt­ed.

Prison of­fi­cials said in­mates se­lect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the agri­cul­tur­al projects are those who had al­ready served more than half of their sen­tence, fol­low­ing which they are as­sessed and in­ter­viewed be­fore they are en­rolled in the pro­gramme.

Clarke was sen­tenced in De­cem­ber 2018 to 24-months im­pris­on­ment af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed on charges of ma­li­cious dam­age.

He was ex­pect­ed to be re­leased from prison in April 2020.

Fol­low­ing his re­cap­ture, Clarke is ex­pect­ed to be charged with es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody and will ap­pear be­fore an Ari­ma mag­is­trate on Mon­day.