A convicted killer escaped jail after hiding inside a settee he had built inside prison workshop, it has emerged.

Convict Jose Alain Chura Mosquera, 35, – who had a prison job as a carpenter – had built a three-piece suite which was due to be delivered to a buyer on 26th August.

But moments before the deliverymen arrived at the El Abra jail in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Mosquera hid in a secret compartment in the sofa.

Stills from CCTV camera footage show the flatbed truck waiting to be let out of the prison gates with the furniture piled on the back.

It is not reported when jail officials discovered the bizarre escape but it was left to red-faced local police to announce the plot.

Special crime force spokesman Ronald Tapia confirmed: “Last night we received the report of the escape of an inmate, who took advantage of the removal of some furniture from the prison and hid in one of the armchairs that he himself made.

“Alain Chura Mosquera made furniture and did other carpentry work inside the prison and this allowed him to escape.”

He added: “He took advantage of his situation and hid in the furniture that he had made, which was put on a truck in order to be sold.

“The buyer had apparently sent a truck to pick up the furniture. There were in total three chairs that were collected at the same time.”

Officials said they have arrested one suspected accomplice as they tried to discover who had ordered the furniture and arranged for it to be collected.

Mosquera had been in preventive detention since January 20, 2020, for a murder committed in 2017.