Prisoners

Each cell block houses up to 50 prisoners with several guards stationed outside each block.

Deputy Police Commissioner Auapa'au Logoitino Filipo told Radio Polynesia more than 60 police and fire and emergency services officers responded to the call for help from the prison.

All prisoners have been accounted for and Auapa'au says police have launched an investigation.

It’s been more than a month since prisoners were allowed visitors because of the nationwide Covid lockdown.

Photo file RNZ Pacific  Caption: Tanumalala Prison in Samoa 

The inmates, Tagaloasa Filipaina and Ovaleni Poli Palau, were transferred from Tafaigata prison to the Apia police station in February 2018.

The pair had been suspected of planning a mass prison break out during a cyclone warning last February.

In her ruling, Justice Tafaiomalo Tuala Warren, said there was no breach of the applicant's constitutional rights.

She also encouraged the Commissioner of Prisons and Corrections to reassess the viability of taking the applicants to the newly built prison at Tanumalala, which is expected to be opened by July.

The 49 prisoners were treated to the performance of selected scenes from the play ‘The White Guitar’, by Wellington Performance Company The Conch Team, and found many parallels between their own lives and the characters in the play.

The White Guitar is an epic narrative starting in 1948 Samoa, through to Christchurch in 2011, and concluding in the present day. It covers the true story told by a father, Fa’amoana John Luafutu, and his two sons Mathias and Malo (“Scribe”).