Inmate flosses his way out of jail

ROME -- An Italian mafioso has broken out of a high-security prison and clinched a place in criminal history by sawing through the bars of his cell using nothing but dental floss.

Vincenzo Curcio, convicted of one murder and arranging seven others, flossed his way to freedom after discovering an astonishing secret at Vallette prison in Turin, home to another 1,300 inmates: Its bars are made of ductile iron, which contains no carbon and is softer than steel or normal iron.

He sawed for several days and disposed of the shavings undetected by 800 guards. Then he tied bedsheets together, shimmied to the ground floor and scaled the jail fence, grateful that the alarm system was out of order.

Bafflement at his success turned to outrage when it was revealed, three weeks after the escape, that the bars were to blame.

Mortified officials explained that the prison was built in the 1970s, when fear of terrorists made it more important to design a building to withstand attack from outside, not escape from within.

The revelation piled fresh embarrassment on a judicial system already reeling from blunders:

-- An investigation is under way into how another mafioso was able to set up a printing press in his cell to forge banknotes.

-- Another inquiry is examining how 700,000 court cases were filed away in a basement and forgotten for more than 10 years until they were discovered late last year. Major unsolved cases are feared to be buried in the archive, which could take years to sort out.

-- Feminists gasped last month when it emerged that a Sicilian judge and lawyers had faked an entire trial in order to trick a new female prosecutor into unknowingly using obscene local slang.

-- Italy's highest appeals court last week ordered 11 convicted mass murderers, sentenced to life imprisonment, to be released immediately because too much time had passed while they waited for appeals. Staffing shortages and bureaucratic delays in courts were blamed for opening the loophole, which has freed 28 other convicted and suspected killers this year.

Despite the extraordinary litany of disasters, Justice Minister Oliviero Diliberto defied demands for his resignation and over the weekend rushed through a bill to extend the limits on pre-trial custody.

The one bright spot in a grim week for law enforcers was the capture of a dwarf contortionist who allegedly curled into a box, had himself delivered to a Rome post office, burst out, brandished a pistol and roared: "This is a hold-up."

Maurizio Cuseo, 47, was claimed to have escaped with $72,000 and threatened to become a legend, putting police under pressure to prove their efficiency. They held a news conference to announce his capture.

Vincenzo Curcio, however, continues to floss at liberty.

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