A drug dealer serving eight years in prison for his role in an international cocaine gang has absconded after he was granted temporary release to work on a building site in Ballymun, Dublin.
Juan Carlos Melgar Alba (42), a Bolivian national, had been granted temporary release from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, to participate in a prison working party helping to build a community centre in Ballymun.
He had been a member of the working party for a number of weeks and had reported to return to jail as planned every evening.
However, yesterday evening when prison staff were about to bring the working party back to the prison, they realised Melgar Alba had absconded.
Gardaí were immediately informed and were seeking the prisoner last night. A spokeswoman for the Irish Prison Service said it was awaiting a report from the governor of Mountjoy, John Lonergan. She said prison staff accompanied all prisoner working parties.
Melgar Alba was sentenced to eight years in July 2004.
The sentence was backdated to July 2003, when he was first arrested and jailed. Allowing for remission, he was not due for release until July 2009.
He was a member of a gang using a flat in Kilkenny city as a cocaine-processing laboratory until they were detected by gardaí in the city in July 2003.
Those responsible for the importation of the drugs had soaked clothing in liquid into which cocaine had been diluted. The clothing was then imported into the Republic. Through an elaborate use of several chemicals, the cocaine was then extracted from the clothing and readied for sale on the streets.
The extraction process was operated from a flat in Greensbridge, Kilkenny.
