Japanese thief found after 1,000 police join manhunt
Tatsuma Hirao was on the run for three weeks after escaping from Ehime and fleeing to a nearby island.
A convicted thief was recaptured three weeks after a rare escape from a Japanese prison and an island manhunt involving more than 1,000 police.
Tatsuma Hirao escaped from a low-security prison in Ehime prefecture on April 8 during a work assignment while serving a five-and-a-half year sentence for theft.
He allegedly drove a stolen car along a highway connecting several islands and arrived on the island of Mukaishima, where more than 1,000 police searched for him daily.
Hirao, 27, was arrested on Monday after being spotted walking on a street in Hiroshima.
In a video of the arrest broadcast on TV Asahi, a man identified as Hirao tried to climb over a concrete wall to escape, but was pulled down, thrown to the ground and seized by two policemen.
Media reports say Hirao told police that he swam from Mukaishima to Hiroshima to escape the manhunt.
Japan has a relatively low crime rate, and prison escapes are rare.
