A prisoner who allegedly escaped custody while attending a funeral in Melbourne six months ago has been tracked down and arrested in Queensland.<\/p>\n
Orijol Rukaj, 47, was last seen while attending a funeral at a cemetery in Keilor East on Saturday April 25 at about 1.30pm.<\/p>\n
At the time, the prisoner was at the Keilor East cemetery on a supervised visit after being granted temporary release to attend the funeral.<\/p>\n
However, he allegedly managed to leave the cemetery undetected before vanishing.<\/p>\n
A six-month search for the absconded man commenced, with officers frantically searching for the escaped prisoner. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past six months, police have been actively searching for Rukaj however there had been no confirmed sightings since the funeral,\u201d a police statement read. <\/p>\n
On June 9, officers visited 20 homes across Melbourne in search for the man, and making further inquiries with his associates. <\/p>\n
On Friday November 13, Queensland Police allegedly found the absconded prisoner, arresting the 47-year-old in Bamaga near Cape York.<\/p>\n
\u201cRukaj is currently in custody in Queensland and will be interviewed by Victoria Police Fugitive Squad detectives in the coming days when they will seek extradition,\u201d the statement read. <\/p>\n
Read related topics:Brisbane<\/a>Melbourne<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prisoner who allegedly escaped custody while attending a funeral in Melbourne six months ago has been tracked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[357778,532138,532140,412113,463685,443726,475569,532144,532136,532135,532152,305465,64,63,325570,6456,48347,350983,532141,106455,39598,520318,532143,393127,532139,647,44,187436,532142,472172,44166,353031,1158,701,4106,532137,46907,7452,384465,532151,488835,525635,532146,532149,412084,441606,532134,377303,532133,532147,378658,532150,378870,376539,401149,532145,532148],"class_list":["post-964733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-357778","tag-s-insane-journey","tag-20-homes","tag-a-cemetery","tag-a-funeral","tag-a-police-statement","tag-a-prisoner","tag-a-supervised-visit","tag-a-trace","tag-about-1-30pm-at","tag-an-unexpected-place","tag-april-25","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bamaga","tag-cape-york","tag-custody","tag-escaped-prisoner","tag-escaped-prisoner-orijol-rukaj","tag-extradition","tag-friday","tag-further-inquiries","tag-his-associates","tag-june-9","tag-keilor-east","tag-melbourne","tag-news","tag-newswire-news","tag-no-confirmed-sightings","tag-november-13","tag-officers","tag-orijol-rukaj","tag-police","tag-queensland","tag-queensland-police","tag-rukaj","tag-saturday","tag-search","tag-six-months","tag-temporary-release","tag-the-prisoner","tag-the-47-year-old","tag-the-absconded-man","tag-the-absconded-prisoner","tag-the-cemetery","tag-the-coming-days","tag-the-escaped-prisoner","tag-the-funeral","tag-the-funeral-however","tag-the-keilor-east-cemetery","tag-the-man","tag-the-past-six-months","tag-the-statement","tag-the-time","tag-the-tip","tag-vanishing-a-six-month-search","tag-victoria-police-fugitive-squad-detectives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}