PRETORIA: One of South Africa's most brutal criminals has become the first prisoner to escape from the country's highest security prison after covering his body in petroleum jelly and squeezing his way out of his cell despite being handcuffed and shackled.

Ananias Mathe has left prison officials stunned after slipping out of Pretoria's C-Max prison, built 36 years ago and previously thought to be escape proof.

Mathe, a 29-year-old Mozambican former soldier, was awaiting trial on 51 charges of murder, rape, armed robbery and car hijacking after heading a gang of about 40 men that terrorised parts of Johannesburg and small towns in the north of South Africa for three years.

He was first arrested a year ago but four months later escaped from Johannesburg central police station's high risk detention facility. He was recaptured in December and sent to C-Max.

The Pretoria News reported that on Saturday night Mathe is believed to have cut through the wall around the tiny window in his cell, removed the bullet proof glass and frame, and to have stripped naked and covered himself in the petroleum jelly to squeeze through a gap 8 inches (20cm) wide. He carried his clothes in bed linen tied to a hook fashioned from a bed post.

How he managed all this when he was handcuffed and shackled by his feet, and under the watch of guards who patrol on a metal grid that allows them to look down into the cells, is the subject of an investigation by a special task team set up by the government. South Africa's prisons minister, Ngconde Balfour, said he believes Mathe had inside help.

Superintendent Andre Neethling, who led the hunt for Mathe, described him as the most brazen criminal he had come across.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service