KABUL, Afghanistan (EPN) -- The haunted, depressing cells of Pul-i-Charki Prison await fresh inmates.

A mass escape recently allowed all 1,200 political prisoners, thieves, rapists, murderers and framed innocents to flee Pul-i-Charki's massive, concrete cell blocks.

The new, U.S.-backed Afghan government, however, will most likely round up its enemies and anyone else it convicts and toss them into these empty, dark, cold cages.

Today, abandoned clothes and handwritten notebooks indicate the inmates' frantic race to freedom when they discovered their Taliban guards suddenly disappeared in mid-November.

Ripped-open mattresses show where they dug out whatever hidden possessions they had stashed in their cotton-filled bedding before escaping.

Hundreds of cement cells, big and small, now lay vacant behind steel bars.

A postcard from Germany adorns one cell. Charcoal sketches illustrate walls along a block of toilets.

Medical labels, prison visitation passes and official notices from international aid groups litter Pul-i-Charki's halls and stairs.

Outside, an anti-aircraft gun atop the entrance gate sits unguarded, aimed in the air.

"The Taliban didn't beat me when they arrested me, because I didn't resist arrest, but during their investigation, yes, they were pushing me to say I was with the opposition," said one former inmate who joined the mass escape.

He asked not to be identified.

"The Taliban had a thick electric cable and they beat me several times for one month and 12 days to force me to confess. But I didn't, because I wasn't with the opposition.

"They arrested me just because I was from Jabal Saraj village, which was against the Taliban. But actually I was born in Kabul and I went to school in Kabul. It was my father who was from Jabal Saraj, not me.

"Then the Taliban sent me to court and I said the same thing. But they sentenced me anyway. There was no law, no Sharia [Islamic law]. They say it was Sharia, but it was not.

"I was sentenced by a Special Court for Political Cases in Kabul, which was under the intelligence agency. The total time in Pul-i-Charki for me was 14 months and 12 days.

"Myself, I was beaten only twice after I was put in Pul-i-Charki. Once, when we had no water and I went to a big water tank to get water and there was a big crowd, they beat us.

"The other time was when I met my father who visited and then they said the visiting time was over.

"But the others were beaten a lot. I was working at the medical clinic in Pul-i-Charki, so they didn't mistreat me."

The former inmate thanks the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan for his surprise chance to flee the prison.

"We knew about the situation and the American bombing. One of our colleagues had a small radio and he could listen under the blanket in the night.

"It was Monday night [Nov. 12] and we felt that the Taliban had run away. We were monitoring the prison yard from the windows.

"We saw the Taliban were confused and running back and forth. At 10 o'clock at night, we saw their vehicles drive away from the compounds.

"Then we broke the locks. We had hidden things, like metal sticks, waiting for such a day.

"We went out of our cells. There was a guard, a very old local guard with a gun. He was killed by the prisoners.

"We started walking to the city. All of the 1,200 prisoners who escaped were happy the Americans bombed."

The Taliban abandoned Kabul with few shots fired after the U.S. bombed Afghanistan for more than a month, beginning on Oct. 7.

On the morning of Nov. 13, U.S.-backed, anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters entered the capital.

"One thing I was not happy about was the escape of the criminals. Now all the thieves and killers have started their crimes again," the former inmate said.

The new Afghan government, meanwhile, is struggling to update itself on judicial procedures and punishment.

"I know the English words 'to kill,' 'to murder,' and 'to assassinate' someone, but what is the English when a court orders someone to be killed?" an earnest Foreign Ministry official asked during a conversation about visas.

"And Najibullah?" the official added, referring to the Moscow-backed Afghan president who presided over the end of the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in 1989.

Najibullah was hanged by the Taliban in Kabul in 1996.

"I know 'to hang' something and 'to suspend' something, but is there another word for 'to hang'? Such as 'to terminate a life by hanging'?"

After the official received a brief vocabulary lesson in his office, he explained: "I work here at the Foreign Ministry and I am a graduate of political science, so it is important for me to know these things."