Police on Thursday killed two of seven prisoners who escaped this week by seizing a police van and attacking their guards, dpa reported. The two men were killed in a shootout in Bukit Mertajam town in the northern state of Penang, 275 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur, said Abdul Rahim Jaafar, Penang's deputy police chief. The escapees were in a car that tried to drive through a police roadblock in the village of Pandang Ibu, prompting police officers to shoot the tires of the vehicle, Abdul Rahim said. He said the driver lost control of the car, which crashed into a river, and a shootout erupted, in which the two men were killed. The remaining five prisoners who escaped Monday while being transported to court in nearby Butterworth remained at large. More than 120 police officers had been dispatched to hunt them down.
