Derek Achong

An Aranguez man was yes­ter­day de­tained by po­lice for as­sist­ing three pris­on­ers dur­ing their dar­ing es­cape from the Port-of-Spain prison last Fri­day.The 38-year-old sus­pect, who po­lice be­lieve pro­vid­ed the Nis­san Navara that was used by the pris­on­ers as a get­away ve­hi­cle, was ar­rest­ed at a mosque, in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, around mid­day yes­ter­day by Guard and Emer­gency Branch of­fi­cers.

He re­mained de­tained un­der tight se­cu­ri­ty at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, up to late yes­ter­day and was ex­pect­ed to be ques­tioned by in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­tween last night and this morn­ing.Po­lice sources said in­ves­ti­ga­tors had been search­ing for the sus­pect since the jail­break and were on­ly able to make the ar­rest af­ter they re­ceived an anony­mous tip-off yes­ter­day.

The man, who po­lice said was be­hind the turf war in the En­ter­prise dis­trict last month, had gone in­to hid­ing. He is be­lieved to have al­so sup­plied the weapons, which were sneaked in­to the prison, to the es­capees.Mean­while, Christo­pher "Mon­ster" Sel­by, the last sur­viv­ing es­capee, re­mained de­tained at the St James Po­lice Sta­tion up to late last night. Homi­cide de­tec­tives re­port­ed­ly in­ter­viewed Sel­by for sev­er­al hours yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

A source close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said po­lice were con­sid­er­ing charg­ing Sel­by with es­cap­ing law­ful cus­tody in ad­di­tion to the mur­der of PC Sher­man May­nard, who was shot dead by the pris­on­ers as they bolt­ed from the prison.How­ev­er, Sel­by may be charged un­der the felony mur­der rule, un­der which ac­cused per­sons are spared the death penal­ty in cas­es where death re­sults from the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence, in this case es­cap­ing the prison.

Un­like tra­di­tion­al mur­der cas­es, per­sons charged with felony mur­der are al­so al­lowed to plead guilty be­fore tri­al, in or­der to get a re­duced sen­tence.Sel­by, Has­san Atwell and Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin es­caped from the Fred­er­ick Street prison around mid­day last Fri­day.Armed with firearms and a hand grenade, the men re­port­ed­ly shot at May­nard and oth­er of­fi­cers who were dri­ving past the prison. May­nard died short­ly af­ter at hos­pi­tal.

The pris­on­ers, who were on re­mand for sep­a­rate crimes, crashed their get­away ve­hi­cle near the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and at­tempt­ed to make their es­cape on foot.Mar­tin, one of 12 men on tri­al for the mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, was cor­nered by po­lice at a se­cu­ri­ty guard booth at the hos­pi­tal. He was killed in an ex­change of gun­fire with po­lice.

On Sun­day morn­ing, Atwell was found mur­dered in East Dry Riv­er. Hours lat­er, Sel­by sur­ren­dered to po­lice at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.Speak­ing dur­ing the week­ly press brief­ing yes­ter­day, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Michael Pierre said that the jail­break was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by ASP Jer­ry De Leon.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.