World
France prison convoy attack: Inmate on the run after guards killed in ambush
Hundreds of police are hunting armed men who attacked a prison van in France – with a convict reportedly nicknamed “The Fly” escaping.
Two male prison officers were shot dead and three others seriously injured during the ambush on a motorway in Incarville, northwest France, at around 9am.
Eric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, said one of the officers leaves behind a wife who was five months pregnant, while the other was a 21-year-old father-of-two.
He said two of those injured are in a critical condition after Tuesday’s ambush.
The officers were transporting convict Mohamed Amra, 30, when they came under heavy fire, said the Paris prosecutor’s office.
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CCTV shows car smash into prison van
Footage shows a black car driving into the front of a white van, and later two armed men patrolling near a tollbooth on the A154 motorway.
Several men used two vehicles to target the van – with one later found burnt-out, a police source told French news agency AFP.
Mohamed Amra’s nickname is said to be ‘The Fly’, according to French media
Amra had been serving an 18-month sentence for “aggravated thefts” in the suburbs of Evreux, northwest France, according to BFM TV.
The French broadcaster said his nickname is “The Fly”.
Police sources also said Amra was involved in drug dealing, suspected of ordering a murder in Marseille, and had ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.
He had reportedly appeared before a judge in Rouen on Tuesday morning, accused of attempted homicide.
The attack on the van took place while he was being transported back to prison in Evreux, according to reports in France.
Footage shows the aftermath of a collision
A prison source told Le Parisien that the escaped inmate had tried to saw the bars off his cell two days ago.
He had reportedly been placed in solitary confinement and his surveillance level raised after the escape attempt.
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Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Amra was a “particularly monitored detainee” while in prison.
Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said “several hundred police officers” had been deployed to “find these criminals”.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: “This morning’s attack, which cost the lives of prison officers, is a shock to us all.
“The Nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues.
“Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people. We will be intractable.”
“Everything, I mean everything, will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” added justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.
“These are people for whom life weighs nothing. They will be arrested, they will be judged, and they will be punished according to the crime they committed.”