His pursuit ended in Panama, where he was framed by former partner Roy Geary for murder and arrested. In a humiliating turn of events, Bellick was stripped of his guard's uniform and thrown into Sona, a notoriously violent and lawless Panamanian prison. He entered the prison as a beaten and broken man, stripped to his underwear and forced to drink from a mud puddle by the other inmates, at the absolute bottom of the prison’s brutal social ladder.
Bellick eventually escapes between Season 3 and Season 4 during a massive prison riot.
He emerges from a manhole outside the prison walls alongside Michael, Mahone, and Whistler. For a brief moment, Bellick tastes freedom. He is filthy, half-starved, and shell-shocked, but he is out.