An enormous police manhunt was underway in northern France on Tuesday after armed assailants ambushed a jail convoy at a street tollbooth, killed two jail officers and freed an inmate.
Éric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, mentioned that three different jail officers had been significantly injured within the episode, which occurred close to Incarville, a city within the Eure space northwest of Paris.
The prisoner was being transported between a courthouse in Évreux and a jail in Rouen when males armed with “heavy weapons” attacked the van he was in, Mr. Dupond-Moretti mentioned.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, recognized the person who escaped as Mohamed Amra, 30, and mentioned he was a part of a class of inmates who’re underneath surveillance.
Mr. Amra had been discovered responsible of theft by breaking and coming into by a courtroom in Évreux final week, and he had additionally been underneath investigation in Marseille, a southern Mediterranean metropolis, in connection to a kidnapping and murder case. Ms. Beccuau didn’t present particulars about both instances or specify how lengthy Mr. Amra had been detained.
A nationwide unit specialised in organized crime will lead the investigation into the ambush and into Mr. Amra’s escape, Ms. Beccuau mentioned in a press release.
President Emmanuel Macron mentioned the assault was a “shock to us all.”
“The Nation stands by the households, the injured and their colleagues,” he mentioned on X.
The French authorities didn’t establish the 2 officers who died, however Mr. Dupond-Moretti mentioned that considered one of them was married with two kids, and that the opposite was married and anticipating a toddler.
Gérald Darmanin, France’s inside minister, mentioned on X that “lots of” of law enforcement officials had been deployed to apprehend the escaped inmate and the assailants.
“Every little thing attainable is being finished to search out these criminals,” Mr. Darmanin mentioned.
