A daring helicopter jailbreak, in which three hardened criminals escaped, left the Belgian prison service with an embarrassing sense of déjà vu yesterday.

A hijacked helicopter was used in the raid on the prison in Bruges in a copy of a break-out from the country’s highest security prison two years ago and which the authorities vowed would never happen again.

All prison yards were supposed to have helicopter-proof netting installed to prevent a repeat of the escape of Nordin Benallal, who spent two days on the run after two armed colleagues landed in the exercise area of Ittre prison, south of Brussels, in October 2007.

The authorities admitted that anti-helicopter protection had not yet been fitted in the Bruges prison.

Three escapees, including Ashraf Sekkaki, 26, a serial bank-robber and car-jacker, are still on the run tonight.

Benallal’s plans went awry when several inmates held on to the helicopter hoping for a lift to freedom. It crashed back to the ground and was unable to take off again. Benallal’s accomplices took several prison guards hostage and used them to walk out of the front gate.

Sekkaki’s friends took precautions to ward off inmates but the pilot refused to fly with six people in the helicopter despite being ordered to take off at gunpoint.

One of the would-be rescuers was forced to stay behind. The 22-year-old Moroccan is the only one of the gang in police custody.

The two other prisoners were named as Mohammed Johry and Abdel Had Kahjary Mulloul.

Sekkaki was described as a career criminal who had escaped from prison in 2003 and was on the run for five months before being recaptured.

He has spent much of the past decade behind bars for his part in about a dozen attacks on banks, some of them involving hostages.

In 2007 he was sent to a psychiatric unit because of his violent tendencies and constant threats to prison guards.

Belgian media reported that Sekkaki was charged with two counts of plotting to escape last year but the cases were dropped through lack of admissable evidence. The authorities had tapped his telephone but were unable to use the recordings in court under Belgian law.

The helicopter and its pilot was abandoned at Aalter, on the outskirts of Bruges, after the raid on Thursday evening.

The convicts seized a vehicle from a petrol station, later switching cars and taking a woman driver hostage. She was left in Melle in Flanders, the police said.

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