Argentina mounts dragnet for Paraguayan assassination suspects

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) -- Brazil's president vowed on Monday to hunt down two escaped inmates who were being held in last year's contract killing of Paraguayan Vice President Luis Maria Argana.

"This was a serious failure," President Fernando de la Rua told reporters. "I've ordered an immediate investigation and we've dispatched the entire government apparatus to find them."

Some 15,000 Argentine police, coast guard patrols and soldiers are scouring airports, border checks and navigable rivers in a manhunt for the inmates.

Alleged Paraguayan hit men Fidencio Vega Barrios and Luis Alberto Rojas started a riot in the federal police detention center in downtown Buenos Aires shortly before 1 a.m. (0400 GMT) Sunday and took one policeman and two prisoners hostage.

A third escaped prisoner, Agustin Cabrera of Argentina, is an alleged member of a notorious bank robbery ring who told a judge he escaped from another prison in 1998 by promising guards $100,000 to let him out. He also remains at large.

"We have many people searching for them, not just police but gendarmes, provincial police and others. Last year, people said it would be impossible to find them but our police found them in February so I'm confident we'll capture them again," Security Secretary Enrique Mathov told Reuters.

"It's possible they'll try to escape either to Paraguay or Brazil so we're in contact with authorities there," he said.

A probe into Sunday's high security jail break will try to determine if the fugitives had outside help, he said.

Coast guard patrols of the Pilcomayo, Paraguay and Paran rivers separating Argentina from Paraguay were stepped up after President de la Rua ordered the manhunt.

Hundreds of police fanned out across Buenos Aires province, the size of France, to do spot checks on highways and roads.

The 112-year-old detention center has video cameras along its outside perimeter but none inside the jail itself.

Argana's son, Felix, told local radio in the Paraguayan capital Asuncion that he suspected the two men had accomplices who helped them escape from the prison.

"We're amazed because according to our information Vega Barrios and Rojas were being held in a super-maximum security prison, where there's never been an escape ever before," Paraguayan Senator Juan Carlos Galaverna told Argentine radio.

Argentine Correctional Services Secretary Patricia Bullrich called the escape a "very serious problem" and that staff at the jail were not experts in guarding dangerous offenders.

Former Paraguayan army chief Lino Oviedo is suspected of plotting Argana's murder in March 1999. He fled Argentina last year but is now under arrest in Brazil awaiting extradition.

"The fact they were able to escape without any resistance stands out. We're worried because Oviedo escaped in a similar way, so there must be strong links between police and mafia," Felix Argana said.

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