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France prison van attack: 'Unprecedented' manhunt underway for fugitive gangster 'The Fly' after escape that saw two guards 'slaughtered like dogs' - prompting protests by French jail staff
An 'unprecedented' manhunt has been launched for a fugitive gangster in France who escaped jail during a deadly ambush on a prison van.
Gerald Darmanin, France's Interior Minister, said 'all means are being used' to find Mohamed Amra, 30 - known locally as 'The Fly' - after Tuesday's daring escape.
Two officers were killed and three injured when armed men opened fire on the prison van as it took Amra back to jail from a courthouse in Normandy, sparking national outrage.
Dramatic footage showed the chilling moments the prison van was rammed by a black SUV before gunmen, in hoods and balaclavas, appeared and opened fire with military-grade weapons.
Damanin described the assault as 'coldblooded barbarity', pledging 'several hundred' gendarmes and police officers to track down the missing convict as President Emmanuel Macron said 'everything' is being done to locate them. The drug gang boss and his posse were described as 'armed and very dangerous'.
A black SUV rams into the prison van carrying 'La Mouche' at a motorway toll on Tuesday
Footage also shows gunmen at the scene, filmed from a passing coach, where three prison officers were shot dead
A graphic detailing how the deadly attack unfolded at a motorway toll station in north-west France
The inmate, Mohammed Amra, reportedly nicknamed 'La Mouche' (The Fly), was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy before the bloodbath unfolded
Footage shows the moment a car rammed into a French police vehicle at the Incarville tollbooth, Normandy
The two officers who died at the scene of the attack were Arnaud Garcia (L) and Fabrice Moello (R)
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti lamented that the victims, Mr Moelle and Mr Garcia, were 'slaughtered like dogs by men for whom life means nothing', one of the victims leaving behind a pregnant wife.
Chilling footage of the executions captured the moment over 30 rounds were discharged from automatic weapons.
In the south of France, prison officers blocked the entrance to a jail in Beziers in protest and observed a minute's silence in tribute to the victims of the horrifying attack.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called the ambush 'despicable' and an attack on the nation and vowed to hunt down the gang.
Commentators pointed to the incident as an example of the growing violence and power of the country's drug gangs.
The atrocity took place in daylight as the prison convoy was two-thirds of the way through a 34-mile journey from Rouen in Normandy back to jail in the town of Évreux after a morning court hearing.
Amra, who allegedly ordered a gangland execution two years ago, had appeared before an investigating magistrate.
As the convoy paused at Incarville tollbooth on the A154 motorway near Val-de-Reuil, the SUV drove into the lead van, effectively blocking it.
Masked men in black emerged from two other cars, brandishing weapons, believed to be pump action rifles and automatic machine guns. They opened fire with armed officers inside the prison vans firing back. One of the attackers is believed to have been injured in the shoot-out.
At one point, a member of the gang was spotted on chilling footage making sure a victim was dead with a 'double tap' shot to the head.
Some officers scrambled to grab their service pistols, but they could not match the gang's immense firepower.
The coordinated attack was over in five minutes, having been played out in front of motorists, including a coach whose passengers took mobile phone videos.
Three wounded officers remain in intensive care, one with a bullet in the forehead, Dupond-Moretti revealed.
He also told reporters on Tuesday one of the officers killed, Fabrice Moello, 'leaves behind a wife and two children who were meant to celebrate their 21st birthday in two days'.
While the second officer killed, Arnaud Garcia, aged 34, leaves behind a wife who is five months pregnant.
Speaking to Le Parisien on Wednesday, Garcia's heartbroken parents said: 'My son was murdered! This ambush was worked on, prepared, premeditated'.
Three other officers in total were left injured following the attack.
As reported by local media, Paris state prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the three injured officers are also fathers - aged 48, 52 and 55 years old.
Amra and the gang escaped in two cars, an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series, which were later found abandoned and burnt out.
Pictured is the black SUV shortly after it rammed into the prison convoy
French authorities were seen towing away a burnt-out vehicle belived to have been used in the inmate's escape
Forensic officer at work at the site of a ramming attack which took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France
Arnaud Garcia, pictured with wife, Mary, before he was shot dead at the tollbooth in Normandy
A police source claimed Amra was the head of a narcotics network and had been held under 'special surveillance' in jail after trying to saw through the bars of his cell.
He has reportedly been linked to organised crime as well as to kidnapping and murder.
On Tuesday, more than 450 officers and gendarmes were mobilised just for the search in the northern department of Eure where the attack took place, Darmanin said.
We 'will also have to put on trial this savagery that affects our society and that kills fathers of families,' Darmanin said.
Amra was convicted of a series of aggravated thefts last week and given an 18-month sentence after using a gun to rob supermarkets in Évreux in 2019.
He has a total of 13 convictions and was also being held in connection with an attempted murder in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, and the execution of a man in Marseille in June 2022.
'The charred corpse of a man was found in a burned vehicle, in the town of Le Rove, bordering Marseille. The victim had obviously been executed beforehand with a bullet to the head,' at the time said a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor's office.
Last week, on May 10, Amra was convicted of burglary.
His lawyer, Hugues Vigier, told French news channel BFMTV 'he would like to believe that he [Amra] didn't know about the plan to free him'.
'For me this plan doesn't match with what I know of him. If he's behind it then I failed to understand who he is,' Mr Vigier added.
Amra is nicknamed 'The Fly' because of his multiple convictions and his involvement in a range of crimes, with a source saying: 'He's everywhere, like an annoying fly.' French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said: 'These are people for whom life counts for nothing.'
He is said to have connections to a gang in Marseille, which has been swamped with drug-related gang violence.
French police staff have gathered and blocked the entrance of the jail during a protest in Beziers, south of France on May 15, 20244. Pictured: Protesters holding a banner that reads 'prison on the brink of explosion'
Prison officers gather as tyres burn during a protest at the Bordeaux-Gradignan jail in Gradignan
Officers blocked the entrance to the jail with pieces if windshields and bumpers
A prison officer of the FO trade union sets a tyre on fire during the protest
Prison staff observed a minute of silence for the two dead officers
Many prison officers said they would carry out only a minimum service on Wednesday
But his criminal record to date does not contain any convictions for drug offences, the Paris prosecutor said Tuesday.
French prison guards wear bullet proof vests and have handguns when transporting prisoners. They do not have to stop or pay at toll stations but they are often slowed by traffic, making them vulnerable to attack.
Following the deaths of the two officers, a manhunt for the killers led by the elite Gendarme National Intervention Group (GIPB) is now underway.
Prosecutors working for the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organised Crime (JUNALCO) have opened an enquiry into 'murder and attempted murder by an organised gang' - offences which are punishable with life behind bars.
Despite the immediate manhunt efforts, French citizens have been left shaken by the tragic incident which saw the lives of two guards snatched and a convicted criminal on the run.
Images from Beziers, south of France, on Wednesday morning, show prison officers gathered around and blocking the entrance to the Bordeaux-Gradignan jail in Gradignanwith windshields and bumpers as protests erupted at the site.
French jail staff demonstrators waved banners that read: 'Prison on the brink of explosion', 'grieving' and 'supervisors in anger' after observing a minute of silence for the deceased officers.
A prison officer sets candles alight next to a banner reading 'prison on the brink of explosion'
Staff members stand next to a wooden panel reading grieving during a protest in front of the Lutterbach-Mulhouse penitential centre in Lutterbach, eastern France
Staff members stand next to a banner reading supervisors in anger at the Lutterbach-Mulhouse penitential centre on May 15, 2024
Other striking images captured the moment a prison officer of the FO trade union set a tyre alight on the prison grounds as the protesting staff gathered around to watch the blaze.
At one prison near Marseille, more than 100 prison officers had gathered beneath a banner saying: 'We're not paid to die.'
Protests have also erupted at the Lutterbach-Mulhouse penitential centre in Lutterbach, eastern France.
Many prison officers said they would carry out only a minimum service on Wednesday, and unions called for greater security and limited transfers of prisoners between jails and courts.
They asked to have legal officials come into prisons for certain procedures instead, or use videoconferencing when possible.
Some complained of the poor conditions and violence in France's overcrowded prisons.
Erwan Saoudi, of the FO Justice union, said: 'When you put three people in a cell that is 9 metres squared and should only hold one person, of course that creates tension and incidents.'
The French Justice minister is set to meet prison officers unions on Wednesday afternoon.