By Simon Shepherd
A standoff at the country's maximum security prison continues tonight.
Two inmates managed to get into a disused watchtower at Paremoremo this morning, sparking a major lockdown.
The alarm was raised at 10:30am and the prison locked down when the two men appeared in the observation tower.
The men had been in an exercise yard where they managed to scale the watch tower’s wall.
One is unknown, the other infamous. 3 News has been told he is Aaron Forden, the prisoner dubbed ‘Houdini’ after multiple escapes.
In 2008 he used knotted sheets to escape the old Mt Eden jail.
Two years later he allegedly stabbed a fellow inmate in the head at Paremoremo, and then sparked a police hunt when he became the first inmate to abscond from the new Mt Eden corrections facility.
The men aren't making demands and look settled in, wearing extra clothes and a blanket.
For the moment, neither side is moving.
3 News