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December 16, 2011

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Fugitive caught 14 years after tunnel jail escape

POLICE in Hebei Province said yesterday they have captured a fugitive who escaped from jail in 1997 by digging a 13-meter tunnel.

Li Junlin, 41, was arrested on December 7 after police traced his location by tapping the phone of a relative in Hebei.

He was living with his wife and four children in the northwestern city of Yan'an - over 1,000 kilometers from the Hebei's Linzhang County, his hometown and one of the crime scenes in which Li was allegedly involved.

He was first arrested in December 1996 as part a 13-member gang that police say had committed 22 armed robberies, one murder and over 10 burglaries and rapes in several Hebei counties and in the neighboring Henan Province. Four of the gang members were later convicted and executed.

In January 1997, Li was being held in a detention cell in handcuffs and shackles awaiting trial with 10 other inmates, one of whom used to be a miner. Police said the 11, using their bare hands, dug a tunnel from the corner of the cell to outside of the prison walls in just one night.

The other 10 fugitives were apprehended by police within three months, but Li eluded police for 14 years. Li changed his name to Liu Jun and worked at a quarry in neighboring Shanxi Province.

Eventually, he made his way to Yan'an where he married a local woman and started a family.



 

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