Hundreds of law enforcement officers have been deployed to find a criminal known as “The Fly” and the gunmen who helped him escape from a prison van in France on Tuesday morning in a brazen raid that left two prison officers dead and another three seriously injured.
The inmate, 30-year-old Mohamed Amra, was being transported from a court appearance back to a prison in Évreux in the northwestern Normandy region when a car rammed into the van at a toll booth. The armed criminals then opened fire.
The daylight ambush shocked France and has led to hundreds of prison officers going on strike Wednesday protesting against the violence and dangers of their jobs, with authorities under acute pressure to apprehend Amra and his accomplices.
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Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told the RTL broadcaster that “a lot of resources” have been deployed to catch the group, with more than 450 police officers and gendarmes mobilized for the search Tuesday, according to France24. Darmanin also made reference to “international cooperation” in the hunt, seemingly indicating that the suspects may have fled abroad.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said the gunmen used “heavy weapons” in the attack. One of the officers killed had a wife and two children, he added, while “the other leaves a wife who is five months pregnant.” Three more officers survived but were wounded in the ambush, including one who was critically injured.
Amra previously had 13 convictions, according to BFMTV, for mostly minor offenses including theft, driving without a license, and refusing to stop for police. Last week, however, he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to 18 months, and he had been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death in a case connected to drug trafficking, the BBC reports.
He’d appeared in court on his latest charges before the ambush. Prosecutor Laure Beccuau described Amra as being “very well known” to the justice system in France but said he was not a “closely watched inmate,” a designation given to very dangerous prisoners. He nevertheless required a “level three escort” during transportation, meaning five prison officers accompanied him during his transfer.
Hugues Vigier, Amra’s lawyer, told BFMTV that he was “stunned” by the “crazy” and “inexcusable” violence of the ambush. “This does not correspond to the impression that I had of him,” Vigier said. On Sunday, two days before his escape, Amra had allegedly tried to make a separate breakout by sawing the bars of his cell.
Amra’s mother said she wept when she heard of the attack. “I broke down, I cried—I was so unwell,” she told RTL. “How can lives be taken away in this way?”
