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| - A Senegalese prisoner notorious for his serial jailbreaks was re-arrested on Thursday, police said, after making his latest escape in the West African country last weekend. Baye Modou Fall, dubbed the "Escape Ace", had slipped out of a penitentiary in the north of the seaside capital Dakar late Saturday. Senegalese media say the 32-year-old has already escaped from prison a dozen times. On Monday, the fugitive described, in an interview with a private television channel, how he broke a ventilation grate in his cell and then scaled down the prison wall. "I always knew that I could get out of the prison at any time, night or day," Fall said. But a spokesman for Senegal's gendarmerie said Thursday that officers had captured the escapee, along with three accomplices, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Tambacounda, the main town in eastern Senegal. The four attempted to flee by car and motorbike but were arrested in possession of two crowbars. Fall would be transferred back to Dakar by an elite unit of gendarmes, the spokesman said. In his television interview, Fall explained that he broke out of jail "not because I am bandit" but because of the slow pace of his trial, adding that he would show up for his court date once it is scheduled. Rights groups regularly criticise the widespread use of pre-trial detention in Senegal, which contributes to overcrowding in prisons. In 2019, the government put forward a plan to use electronic monitoring tags as a substitute for pre-trial detention, but it has yet to be implemented. mrb/lal/eml/pvh/kjl
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