While a huge gendarmerie manhunt is underway to try and capture the remaining prisoner who still on the run after yesterday's escape from Bingöl jail, the 17 PKK fugitives captured this morning have been transferred to Tekirdağ F-Type prison.

Two people, MEYA-DER representative for Karlıova Alper Aksoy and Karlıova resident Vedat Bozan have been taken into custody accused of helping the fugitives. They have been taken to court this morning.

The only fugitive still on the run has been named as Ekrem Taş. Hundreds of men have been deployed searching for the man. Interior Minister Muammer Güler confirmed that helicopters are also involved in the search.

A man detained in the morning was thought to be Taş, but as it turned out he wasn't.

It has been disclosed that the seventeen PKK prisoners captured in the morning were found by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a rural area near the Ortacanak village of Bingöl.

“The location of the fugitives was detected and they were seized. - said the Interior Minister - I was informed that they had been close since midnight. They were seized unarmed".

The prisoners had escaped from the prison in Bingöl early on Wednesday morning, through an 80-meter tunnel that had been dug from two wards, according to details released by the Interior Minister.

The tunnel was 80-meter-long and 3-meter-deepand it took possibly one year for it to be dug.

The prisoners are said to have set up an illumination system in the tunnel and eliminated the soil by melting it in water and throwing it into the prison toilets.

It is understood that the director of the prison, together with three other staff members have been removed from their duty following the escape.