Canarian Weekly: What a surprise, ?dead? convict is definitely alive!

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AN astonishing investigation began after a prisoner was pronounced dead in Spain, incorrectly, and carried out of jail in a body bag for an autopsy.

A pathologist, preparing to cut him open for a post-mortem, raised the alarm after hearing the inmate wheezing.

The lucky man, named locally as Gonzalo Montoya Jimenez, was, last Sunday night, said to be under police guard in a hospital in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo.

Authorities at Asturias Central Penitentiary, in nearby Villabona, have ordered an inquiry to try to get to the bottom of the bizarre gaffe.

The alarm was sounded at breakfast time on Sunday when the inmate was found slumped unconscious on a chair in his cell after failing to show for a roll-call.

He was bagged up and taken to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Oviedo for an autopsy, after being pronounced dead at the scene. And his loved ones were informed.

It is believed that he had felt ill the day before his dramatic “death”… and even more dramatic “resurrection”.

A Spanish Prison Service spokeswoman confirmed that the man’s family had been informed of his “passing away” as part of standard procedure, which kicks in when a prisoner has been declared dead.

She said: “Two prison doctors concluded that he had clinical signs of death, following a morning roll-call. They informed police, his next-of-kin and a local duty court, as is normal in these cases.

“The court sent a forensic doctor, who was the one who actually confirmed his death.”

The spokeswoman added: “I can’t comment on what happened at the Institute of Legal Medicine, but three doctors saw clinical signs of death, so it’s still not clear at the moment exactly why this occurred.”

Guardia Civil officers, answering to bosses in the northern port city of Gijon, have been tasked with keeping watch on the prisoner while he is treated in hospital.

A Guardia source said: “We got the original call, asking us to attend the jail, because an inmate had died. And we acted according to protocol.

“He was taken away for an autopsy without police presence because, at that point, he was thought to be dead.

“The second call, which came in asking for police assistance in taking him to hospital, and keeping watch over him while he was there, for obvious security reasons, certainly came as a bit of a surprise.”

A hospital spokesman confirmed that the patient was in intensive care, but said he couldn’t comment on his condition. But a well-placed source said his life was not thought to be in danger now that he was being treated in the proper place.

Relatives, who have been visiting him in hospital, are said to be feeling a combination of relief and indignation.

It was not clear, at the time the inmate was in prison, or what length of sentence he was serving.