Senegal's 'Escape Ace' arrested again after prison break

The Senegalese prisoner known as 'Escape Ace' has been arrested again after his latest jail break in Dakar last weekend.

Baye Modou Fall is said to have escaped 12 times from prison, according to local media.

After his latest attempt, he told a TV channel he escaped because of the slow pace of his trial.

He also said he would stay in Senegal until a date was set and he would show up in court.

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.

On Monday, the fugitive described, in an interview with a private television channel, how he broke a ventilation grate in his cell and then rappelled 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 told AFP on Thursday that officers had captured the escapee in Moussala, a village in the east of the country, near the border with Mali.

He added that an elite unit of gendarmes would transfer Fall back to Dakar.