Prison guards union laments use of ‘obsolete’ weapons

A union representing external prison guards requested the replacement of “obsolete” guns given to its members with new ones, in a letter to Citizens’ Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos Thursday.

The union said prison guards have been using revolvers dating from 1911, 1917, 1935 and 1950.

“Attempts were made to replace them in 2003 and 2008, but, unfortunately, for various reasons, they did not come to fruition,” the union said.

“The verbal assurances of our political chiefs that replacing revolvers with modern pistols would be ‘easy’ left us with a sense of satisfaction. Instead, almost two years later, it seems that the replacement of the obsolete personal weapons and the provision of modern ones was anything but ‘easy,’ although the difficulty concerns only our department, since the ministry announces tenders for thousands of pistols for other services,” it added.