KUALA LUMPUR - A SUSPECT in a drug case escaped custody in Malaysia by driving off in a police car with his handcuffs still on.

The 24-year-old man got away on Thursday when police transporting him to court stopped for a toilet break in Perak, local police chief Roslan Bek Ahmad said yesterday.

Police were taking the man from Alor Star town in Kedah to a court in Klang town in Selangor for a trial.

Along the way, they stopped at a rest area in Tapah, off the North-South Expressway, at about 1.15pm.

Two of the policemen went to the toilet while a third officer remained with the suspect in the car. The suspect overpowered the third officer by getting to the front seat after a scuffle, and pushed the police escort out of the door.

He then sped away, his hands still cuffed, Mr Roslan said.

The man got out of the expressway at the Bidor toll plaza, some 20km from Tapah, but on realising that the police were hot on his heels, re-entered the highway and headed south.

He saw a police roadblock along the highway near Tanjung Malim in southern Perak, and made a U-turn.

He drove against the traffic for about 5km, heading north on the southbound lane before crashing the vehicle into a tree by the side of the road.

He then took off on foot into an oil-palm plantation.

'We managed to get the police car back, but he escaped,' Mr Roslan said.

Klang police chief Mohamed Mat Yusop said the suspect was due to be tried yesterday on a heroin-possession charge.

He declined to identify the man.

ASSOCIATED PRESS THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK