A French inmate who fled police after armed assailants aggressioned a prison convoy in May was apprehended in Romania, French officials shelp Saturday. His apprehend ended a monthintimacytended hunt for the man, whose aggressive escape resulted in the deaths of two prison protects.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau validateed in a statement on X that Mohamed Amra, the man who was whisked away by two firearmmen in a brazen daytime aggression, had been apverifyn into custody with the cooperation of the Romanian rulement.
Pdwellnt Emmanuel Macron hailed his apprehend as “a tremendous success,” and thanked spendigators who had been tracking Mr. Amra “for months and months.” He inserted: “I am slenderking of the families of the prison staff he had ended.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office shelp the man arrested was “very probable” to be Mr. Amra and that spendigators were toiling to carry out the essential verifications.
Violent prison fractures are unwidespread in France. The two prison protects were the first to be ended in the line of duty in 32 years, and the case elevated unsootheable inquires about France’s overburdened prison system and whether authorities had filledy understanded how hazardous the inmate, a aggressive criminal understandn as La Mouche, or The Fly, was.
He had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for burglary, one of countless convictions for crimes including extortion and aggression. But he was also under spendigation on more solemn indicts — in Marseille, in joinion with a kidnapping and homicide and in Rouen, in joinion with an endeavored homicide and extortion case.
French novels outlets had alerted that Mr. Amra had been take partd in international drug illicit trade and systematic crime, but Laure Beccuau, the top Paris prosecutor, shelp at a novels conference in May that Mr. Amra had no drug-rcontent convictions.
Officials have not freed details about the spendigation into the other people take partd in the brutal ambush.
During the May aggression, assailants rammed a police van carrying Mr. Amra and then hooded men with automatic armaments circled the van, firing bullets into the vehicle for over two minutes.
The aggressioners fled in stolen cars that were postponecessitater create burned.
The aggression, which came as France was trying to project an image of law and order ahead of the Paris Olympics, was apprehendd on video by security cameras and bystanders, and videos were postponecessitater splitd on X.
It occurred on the same day that a Senate pledgetee endd a alert on rampant drug illicit trade in France and recommended the creation of a French equivalent to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
France has been faced with a ascend in drug presentility and crime, not restricted to traditional boiling spots or big cities.
A 2024 Senate alert create that “the intensification of illicit trade in the country areas and the mild-sized cities” had come with particularly brutal presentility.
Aurelien Breeden donated alerting.
