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The airborne jailbreak is particularly embarrassing because it was the second involving a helicopter in the space of 15 months in Quebec.

Lise Thériault, Mr. Couillard’s deputy premier and the public security minister, has struggled to answer questions about the escape of Serge Pomerleau, 49, Denis Lefebvre, 53, and Yves Denis, 35.

On Monday, she said a judge had ordered an easing of restrictions on the prisoners, who had been required to be shackled when outside their cells, the day before their escape. She called the move questionable.

By Tuesday, she was refusing to answer any questions about the conditions imposed on the escaped men, saying a publication ban prevented her from discussing them.

La Presse reported Wednesday officials at the Orsainville Detention Centre had gradually relaxed the prisoners’ conditions after they were transferred there in March to stand trial on drug-trafficking, conspiracy and weapons-related charges. (They face a separate trial in Montreal for two murders.)

Rewarded for good behaviour, the men were first allowed to have their leg irons removed and then their handcuffs, leaving them free to run to the helicopter when it landed Saturday.

Guards in the watchtower are unarmed, as are all guards inside the prison walls, meaning there was little they could do but watch as the helicopter whisked the prisoners away. Mathieu Lavoie, president of the union representing provincial prison guards, said the latest escape calls into question the government’s will “to assure the public all the safety to which it is entitled.”