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Date Published: 07/02/2025

Escaped British torture convict apprehended in Alicante

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Briton Mark Roscaleer was serving 9 years in a maximum security Portugal prison when he escaped and fled to Spain

Escaped British torture convict apprehended in Alicante

After five months on the run, convicted British criminal Mark Cameron Roscaleer has been captured in Alicante and returned to prison. The 35 year old, from Runcorn near Liverpool, escaped from a maximum security facility in Portugal back in September.

Roscaleer was arrested on the Costa Blanca along with fellow inmate Rodolfo José Lohrmann. They were the last two prisoners of a total of five who remained at large following the mass prison break last year.

The PJ explained in a statement that the convicts were arrested by the Spanish National Police “after persistent and uninterrupted work of gathering and exchanging information by the Judicial Police with the Spanish authorities.”

At the time of his escape, the British prisoner was described by authorities as “dangerous and violent” and “capable of killing to remain free.” He was convicted, along with an accomplice, of torturing and electrocuting a 45-year-old man to find out where he kept his cash after the pair broke into the victim’s home.

When he was first accused, Roscaleer went into hiding in Spain, and although he was eventually extradited to the Algarve to stand trial, police focused their search this time around on the Costa Blanca, where he had known connections.

Lohrmann, on the other hand, is an Argentine with an “extensive criminal career” which includes his participation in “highly organised and especially violent crime, of international scope”.

He was serving a 20-year prison sentence at the Vale de Judeus prison, located about 70 kilometres north of Lisbon.

Both fugitives had international arrest warrants issued against them and were listed on Interpol's red notice.

The other three fugitives, who were recaptured between October and December, are Fábio Fernandes Santos Loureiro (Portuguese, 34), Shergili Farjiani (Georgian, 40) and Fernando Ribeiro Ferreira (Portuguese, 61).

The five inmates were serving sentences of between seven and 25 years in prison in Portugal for crimes such as drug trafficking, criminal association, money laundering, robbery, kidnapping, extortion and abduction, among others.

The Vale de Judeus prison houses mostly inmates sentenced to long terms, with a “very significant number” of foreign prisoners, according to the General Directorate of Reintegration and Penitentiary Services (DGRSP).

In other news: Frantic search for 67-year-old Mark Russel Ward missing in Alicante

Images: Policia Nacional/Google Maps

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