Two Paraguay murder suspects escape Buenos Aires jail

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine border patrols were placed on maximum alert on Sunday after two men suspected of last year's contract killing of Paraguayan Vice President Luis Maria Argana broke out of a Buenos Aires jail, a government official said.

Gendarmes combed airports, increased spot checks of cars headed out of the South American nation as well as stepped up port and river patrols, the official said.

"This is a deep concern to our president and the president of Paraguay. The border stations are on maximum alert but we share about 3,330 km (2,070 miles) of frontier with Paraguay so it's hard to be everywhere at once," said a high-level government official who asked not to be named.

Alleged Paraguayan hitmen Fidencio Vega Barrios and Luis Alberto Rojas fomented an early morning riot in the federal police detention center in downtown Buenos Aires and took one policeman and at least two prisoners hostage.

Argana was killed when his sport utility vehicle was ambushed by gunmen in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion, in March, 1999. Three men were arrested in the Greater Buenos Aires region earlier this year in connection with the assassination.

"This is a high security building and this shouldn't have occurred so part of our investigation will try to determine if they had outside help," the official said.

Three other detained men escaped, two of whom were caught a short while later by police. The third man was a member of a notorious armored vehicle robbery ring who is considered violent and dangerous, he said.

The two men taken back into custody were suspects in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center, he added.

The policeman taken hostage was badly beaten by the escapees. He remains in hospital where he is being treated for non-life threatening injuries, the official said.

Local reports of police exchanging gunfire with the escapees were false, erroneously linking a separate incident that occurred around the same time at dawn, he added.

The alleged contract killers were being held in Buenos Aires on an Interpol arrest warrant and awaiting extradition proceedings.

The man suspected of masterminding Argana's assassination, Lino Oviedo, fled Paraguay shortly after the murder and was granted asylum in neighboring Argentina by former president Carlos Menem last year.

But he broke his asylum conditions when he gave officials the slip and left Argentina shortly before the new president, Fernando de la Rua who vowed to extradite Oviedo to Paraguay, took power December 10.

Oviedo was arrested in Brazil earlier this year where he is now held and awaiting extradition to his home country.

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