Four-time escapee "T.T." arrested in Tarragona – extradition to Italy
The Albanian known as the "escape king" Toma Taulant was arrested in Tarragona. He fled from an Italian high-security prison in December.
Albanian serial escapee arrested in Spain
Spanish police have arrested a man in the north-eastern Spanish city of Tarragona who is regarded in Italy as an "escape wizard". According to WELT, he is Toma Taulant, an Albanian national, whom authorities initially identified only by the initials "T.T.".
Taulant was serving a sentence in Milan that was scheduled to run until 2048 – for aggravated robbery, theft and drug trafficking. In December, he sawed through bars in the high-security prison, tied bed sheets together to make a rope and abseiled himself to freedom. "It sounds like something out of a film, but sometimes reality is stranger than fiction," Spanish police said.
It was not his first escape: Taulant had previously fled from two Italian prisons and once from a Belgian detention facility – there with the help of a human pyramid, which he used to scale the prison wall.
In Tarragona, police tracked him down in a residential district where he was apparently living. He resisted during his arrest; several companions attempted to help him. One of them injured two police officers in the process.
A judge subsequently ordered that Taulant remain in custody pending the completion of his extradition proceedings to Italy. The court ruled out bail. Italy had been seeking him with a European arrest warrant.
Source: WELT