The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 5

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1997 The desperate men: three murderers, one kidnapperrapist and an armed robber as-- I I "The most significant search for desperate criminals ever to have been mounted in Queensland, if not Australia" Brendan Abbott, Oliver Alincic, Peter Sterling, Jason Nixon and Andrew Jeffrey. Ik feoinni IB IBIoce? -r Tun ii Jm" i in iiiimi -v ii "i 1 i 1 i 1 5 WACOL 1 1 1 1 1 i S- r- -j 1 I j. -4 7 fc 1 if i ir. 4 i j' i -v -v. Not so secure Brisbane's maximum security jail and, centre, the getaway car.

BRISBANE over rolls of razor wire, nuclei icnuc, cauapc iiilu bush and waiting car chasing white end pursuit shots fired 5. Armoured car with two armed guards arrives outside perimeter fence; two accomplices (one by fence, one hidden in bushes) open fire, disabling car and pinning down guards 1. Five prisoners in three adjoining cells simultaneously saw through one bar in each cell with diamond cutting wire Use sheets to spread bars ff-i By GREG ROBERTS At about 12.15am yesterday, a bar in a cell in the maximum security Block in Brisbane's Sir David Longland Correctional Centre was quietly removed. Brendan Abbott, 32, his shoulders and hips lathered in soap, squeezed his lean frame through the remaining bars before tumbling to the floor. At the same time, bars in two cells adjoining Abbott's were dislodged.

Convicted murderers Oliver Alincic, 32, and Jason Nixon, 27, emerged from one. Another convicted murderer, Andrew Jeffrey, 20, and Peter Sterling, 31, who was serving a 13-year sentence for kidnapping and rape, freed themselves from the third cell. Authorities suspect Abbott masterminded one of Australia's most brazen and well-planned escapes, with scores of police last night continuing to search the outer western suburbs of Brisbane in search of the five fugitives. Abbott is no stranger to escape. He broke out of Perth's Fremantle Jail in 1989, after making a prison uniform and posing as a guard.

By the time he was captured in Queensland in 1995, he had carried out a string of armed robberies and been dubbed the "postcard bandit" Jbecause he was believed to have sent police photographs of himself outside police stations something he later denied. 6 We consider these five escapees to be the most dangerous and desperate people on the streets of Australia at the moment and police are absolutely petrified and terrified as to what they may do.9 Prison officers became suspicious when they monitored a coded conversation Abbott had with a female friend several weeks ago, but a subsequent raid on a Brisbane unit found no evidence of the plot which by then had almost certainly been hatched. The cell bars were sawn through with razor-sharp, diamond-encrusted "angel" wire, which had been smuggled into the prison. The sawing may have taken more than one night, with the inmates concealing their handiwork by shifting louvre brackets sideways. After emerging from the cells, the five men used chairs to jump over a metre-high tangle of razor wire surrounding their block before running 100 metres to the first of three perimeter fences.

One of at least two accomplices outside the jail threw a firearm and a large set of bolt-cutters to the men. Alarms were triggered as they began cutting through the first fence, and an unarmed prison officer ordered the men to stop, but he was immediately fired upon and forced to take cover. A sniper hiding in thick bush nearby fired on the prison's armoured surveillance vehicle with a high-powered rifle one bullet disabling the vehicle's battery and another passing through a section The Saab 50th Birthday Celebrations are almost over, but the quick can enjoy! For just $34,900 Standard Features include; ABS Brakes Dual Airbags Power Steering 2 litre fuel Saab safeseat Four speaker audio system fl Power locks Tinted windows Power cleaner washwipe fl Internal headlight adjustment control Rear window demist Electric you can get behind the wheel of a new Saab 900 hatch. injected engine Aircondttioning Power windows exterior mirrors Front rear headrests Headlight antenna And much more, see your Saab Dealer today. Details of escapees from Sir David Longland prison: ABBOTT, Brendan James: bom 8562.

Height 180cm, heavy build. Aliases: Nil. Tattoos: Indian head and seahorse on arms. Marks: 5cm scar left neck. Serving 12 years for amed robbery.

ALINCIC, Oliver: Born 71065. Height 165cm, medium build. Aliases: Nil. Tattoos: Nil. Marks: Nil.

Serving life for murder. JEFFREY, Andrew John: bom 161276. Height 179cm, Aliases: Nil. Tattoos: Nil. Marks: Two cigarette burns left arm, one cigarette burn right arm.

Serving life for murder. NIXON, Jason John: born 17670. Height 180cm. Aliases: Nil. Tattoos: Naked lady, two dragons, clouds on left arm.

Marks: 2.5cm scar on right wrist. Serving life for murder. STERLING, Peter Thomas, Bom 111165. Height 172cm. Aliases: Nil.

Tattoos: Panther, angel, Viking, wizard, skulls on left arm; Grim' Reaper, lady, Iron Maiden on right arm. Marks: Nil. Serving 13 years and seven months for deprivation of liberty and rape. 2. Use five metal chairs to climb 1 razor-wire barrier Run 100 metres to perimeter fences 3.

Alarm sounds as they cut through 3m alarm fence with bolt- and wire-cutters 4. Cut through 6m mesh fence suburbs were warned to bolt doors and exercise extreme caution, police received numerous reports of sightings. A Forest Lake resident, Mr Brad Schofield, told reporters he had been offered $50 by one of the men to call a taxi. Two men wearing tracksuits and carrying packages under their arms were seen entering an area of bushland at about 10am, but an intensive search involving sniffer dogs and helicopters failed to locate them. Parents were urged to pick their children up after school and police reinforcements were sent to the area to patrol school precincts.

Brisbane's city centre was thrown into chaos late yesterday as ii -m 'Si i -i the escapees. Photo by greg white rective services annual report A spokesman for the Queensland Corrective Services Commission (QCSC) said yesterday that the jail "tried to keep up" with rapid Kf 6. Climb Or :r.ur wue pei Police sedan when police searched the Performing Arts Complex and the Roma Street Transit Centre in response to reported sightings. Police sources said Abbott is believed to have squirreled away as much as 1 million of the money he stole from Gold Coast banks in a series of robberies. A police spokesman, Mr Brian Swift, said police expected the "absolute worse" from the men in their determination to avoid capture.

"This is the most significant search for desperate criminals ever to have been mounted in Queensland, if not Australia," Mr Swift said. "We consider these five escapees to be the most dangerous and desperate people on the streets of Australia at the moment and police are absolutely petrified and terrified as to what they may do to remain at large. "We're not ruling out any possibility as to what might occur when we finally do track them down." The chief executive officer of Queensland Corrections, Mr Stan Macionis, said the prisons system had not previously been subjected to an escape attempt of such "calculated However, the Minister for Corrective Services, Mr Russell Cooper, reacted angrily, ordering an independent investigation into the escape and a review of security at all Queensland prisons. "There is something seriously amiss when prisoners cut their way through cell bars, prise apart those bars to get out, escape from the centre's most secure unit and cut their way through a series of perimeter fences," Mr Cooper said. technological improvements in recent years.

"There are sections of the jail which are computer-operated, such as K-block, and the perimeter security was upgraded about two years ago," he said. The prison population was divided into living areas and managed accordingly, so officers could predict behaviour better and identify potential problems before they arose. One of yesterday's escapees, the "Postcard Brendan James Abbott, was to be one of the first inmate of an "escape-proof" jail at Woodford in Brisbane. According to the QCSC annual 1996-97 report, escapes from secure custody decreased from 45 in 1990-91 to six in 1995-96. i A ij ft Ar 4 a of the unarmoured roof, missing the driver's head by a few centimetres.

While the guards in the vehicle were pinned down, the prisoners cut through the fences and were joined by their accomplices as they escaped in a stolen Falcon sedan. A police car which chased the sedan was shot at and forced to retreat A security guard at a nearby shopping centre was also shot at The abandoned sedan was found early yesterday morning five kilometres west of the jail at Forest Lake. A blood-splattered seat indicated at least one fugitive had been wounded. Police are uncertain whether more than one vehicle was used in the escape. As residents in surrounding 1 ti-' "r't 1 Police board a helicopter to search for provides a modern, well-equipped environment which is safer for staff and conducive to the positive self-development of individual offenders," according to one cor Prison low-tech despite millions spent By NICK PAPAD0P0UL0S The maximum-security prison where one of Australia's most brazen breakouts took place had millions of dollars spent to upgrade it two years ago but was not "high-tech" by today's standards.

Another block was built, with an extra 96 cells lifting the prison population to 350. Extra razor wire was installed along the fences and microphones put in to alert guards to The Sir David Longland Correc- uonai venire ai wacoi, on Brisbane's south-western outskirts, was built in 1989 for about $30 million. Authorities said then that it had the latest in security technology. "The new centre, while employing the latest in security technology, 1 j. i ssMm' RICK DAMELIAN SAAB 680-716 PARRAMATTA RD.

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