Twenty years ago, 28 inmates escaped from Dendermonde prison in East Flanders in a mass breakout later dubbed 'The Great Escape', though all those involved were tracked down in the years that followed.
The escape took place on 19 August 2006 and was led by then 26-year-old Kosovar Peraj Konto and his 22-year-old Belgian cellmate Zakaria Elaagbani. At about 02:00, they forced open their cell door from the inside.
Armed with a broken mirror, they threatened prison officers, took them hostage and demanded the keys to the other cells. Another 26 inmates then joined the pair.
When they failed to open the outer gate, the group climbed over the prison’s four-metre-high wall instead. Building works on the wall made the climb easier, and the inmates used bed sheets from their cells to cover the barbed wire.
A telephone box on the pavement along Leopoldlaan was used as a step down on the outside of the wall. Belgacom removed the heavily damaged box a few days later.
Seven fugitives were recaptured later that same Saturday, while 21 remained at large. By mid-October 2006, 15 were still on the run.
The breakout reignited criticism of Belgium’s justice policy. CD&V's Tony Van Parys pointed at the time to outdated cells and accused the Federal Government of waiting too long to build new prisons.
The socialist public sector union also called for investment in the prison. Then Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx limited her response to expressing support for staff and management, while internal and administrative investigations were launched.
Italian police stopped Konto during a check in Como on 12 October 2006 and arrested him under a European arrest warrant.
Meanwhile, Elaagbani was arrested by French police in Toulouse in July 2007. He was also wanted there in connection with carjackings and violent thefts.
On 11 March 2008, the criminal court in Dendermonde sentenced the pair to five and four years in prison. They were convicted of taking three prison officers hostage, extorting keys and mobile phones, and damaging doors.
“I had only one goal in mind and that was to escape,” Konto told the court during his trial. His lawyer argued that the prison was outdated and that its locks were easy to force, but the court rejected that defence.
The final major fugitive in the case was Evo Sagakian, an Armenian national whom investigators described as one of the group’s most dangerous criminals.
Sagakian was arrested on 24 December 2009 in Poltava, Ukraine. In 2007, the Ghent Court of Appeal had sentenced him in absentia to ten years in prison for a violent home invasion in Laarne.
Five years after the escape, 26 of the 28 fugitives had been caught, and several had already served their sentences in full. At that point, two Georgians with relatively short sentences were still being sought.
The case also kept attention on plans for a new prison in Dendermonde, which remained stalled for years. The new prison eventually opened in 2023.
The old prison was reopened in 2024 as an auxiliary jail to help tackle overcrowding. It has a capacity for 177 inmates.
