UK police search for foreign prisoner mistakenly freed

UK police have launched a manhunt after another foreign prisoner was mistakenly released from prison.

Police said the 24-year-old Algerian man was mistakenly rescued from HMP Wandsworth in south-west London on October 29, but the mistake was only reported to the Metropolitan Police on Tuesday.

It follows the mistaken release of migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford on October 24, whose crimes sparked weeks of protests.

“Officers are carrying out urgent inquiries to locate and detain him,” a Met spokesman said.

Shortly before the news broke, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was asked during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons whether any other asylum seekers had been released by mistake since Kebatu.

Lammy, who also serves as Minister of Justice, has refused to confirm four times.

Shadow defense secretary James Cartlidge asked: “I want to ask him another very important question – can he reassure the House that no other asylum seeker criminals have accidentally been released from prison since Kebatu’s release?”

Lammy refused to confirm this and criticized the justice system that the Labor government had inherited from the Conservatives.

He responded: “Let me remind him that it was a justice minister who allowed our prisons to get into this state in the first place, and it’s now up to us to fix the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”