New jails to alleviate pressure
For the first time in years, Greece will open a new jail in a few weeks’ time, Justice Minister Anastassis Papaligouras said yesterday after admitting that conditions in prisons around the country were not acceptable. Papaligouras met with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis yesterday to brief him about the investigation into a fire at Korydallos Prison early on Friday which led to the deaths of three inmates and the hospitalization of a fourth with serious burns. The incident prompted an outcry about conditions in the country’s overcrowded prisons after it emerged that there were no smoke alarms or fire extinguishers in Korydallos, a maximum-security jail. «Our prisons are truly in a difficult state,» said Papaligouras. The government said it will build six new jails by next year and the minister revealed yesterday that the first of those would be ready in six weeks. «The prisons were abandoned for many years, resulting in more than 10,000 people now being crammed into space for the detention of 5,500,» said Papaligouras. He added that a second new prison would be ready by the summer and pledged to speed up improvements at existing jails. Meanwhile, the Piraeus prosecutor’s office and the police are still investigating what led to the outbreak of the fire and why it was not put out promptly. Sources indicate that investigators will look into claims that the prisoners in Cell 80 of the fourth wing had an illegal home distillery set up in their quarters. However, the probe will also focus on allegations that water to the wing in question had been cut off the night the fire broke out, making it impossible for the inmates to put out the blaze. The reaction of the prison guards is under scrutiny as well, given allegations that it took them around half an hour to start putting out the fire after it started. Prisoners in three wings of Korydallos refused food for the fourth day in a row yesterday in protest over the deaths of their fellow inmates. Sources told Kathimerini that there was a «strange atmosphere» in the jail.
