Prison officers at one of France's most notorious jails have foiled a daring scheme by suspected members of armed Basque separatist group ETA to blast their way out of the high-walled Paris prison with explosives.
Six ETA militants were moved from Paris' La Sante prison to separate jails after officers found an escape plan showing how they would blast open their cell doors while accomplices outside would blow up the outer wall, officials said today.
The explosives were to have been smuggled into the central Paris prison inside food cans or orange juice cartons. The plan was written in the Basque language and discovered in the cell of one of the ETA suspects. La Sante has housed some of France's most notorious convicts, from Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon to the infamous Carlos the Jackal and other guerrillas, as well as a string of fraudsters such as former Elf chairman Loik le Floch Prigent.
Two weeks ago before the discovery, a suspected top military commander of ETA, Ibon Fernandez Iradi, escaped from French police headquarters in Bayonne, near the border with Spain, two days after his arrest. Three policemen were suspended over the escape after an official report pointed to negligence.