Man escaped prison with a cardboard box

A 42-year-old Turkish man just made a daring prison escape that would have made Solid Snake proud. The man, who was being held in Willich, near Dusseldorf, Germany hid himself in a box that was 1.5m by 1.2m. When the weekly courier came to pick up the mail, they took the box with the prisoner.

The man waited just a little bit after the truck had passed the gates when he cut a hole in the box and jumped out. The driver informed authorities when he noticed the box flapping in the breeze.Lying low

The jail's chief warden, Beate Peters, said the man must have had accomplices outside the prison.

"As soon as the prisoner jumped off the back of the lorry his friends would have picked him up," she told the BBC.

"We have no idea where the fugitive is hiding. We assume that he is still in the county and is lying low before making his move."

Ms Peters said fellow convicts must also have known of his plan but that they would not talk because of a "code of honour" and because it is a criminal offence in Germany to help somebody escape from jail.

She said the incident showed that security needed to be beefed up urgently, something she had been lobbying for in the last few years.

"I was not surprised that an escape happened on my watch. For years I had been asking for more security guards from the government. But now they'll have to listen."