The escaped convict appeared in the police office of Salzburg’s main train station late in the evening, arriving there with two suitcases several hours after he reportedly landed at Munich Airport. The 64-year-old man from Lower Austria told the police that he had spent the last ten years on the island of Tenerife, part of Spain’s Canary Islands, but wanted to return to his homeland as he became older, the country’s main news agency APA reports.
According to the media, he told the officials that Tenerife was not as beautiful as it used to be and that he had lived there long enough. After an identity check, it turned out that the man had fled from a prison in his home region of Lower Austria. After the officials consulted with a court and the prosecutor's office, the returnee was taken to Salzburg’s prison.
READ MORE: Austrian Prisons Overcrowded With Migrant Smugglers Amid Refugee Influx
The man had allegedly fled in December 2008 when he only had half a year to serve in prison. However, this information as well as the details of his disappearance has not been confirmed yet.
But it is already clear, according to a police spokesman, cited by the APA, that there is no legal punishment for a prison break in Austria. This makes his drawn-out escape into some kind of a break from a prison term as his return entails no additional penalty.