{"id":50561,"date":"2024-05-14T20:32:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T20:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/14\/manhunt-underway-in-france-after-prisoner-escapes-in-ambush\/"},"modified":"2024-05-14T20:32:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T20:32:04","slug":"manhunt-underway-in-france-after-prisoner-escapes-in-ambush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/14\/manhunt-underway-in-france-after-prisoner-escapes-in-ambush\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhunt Underway in France After Prisoner Escapes in Ambush"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/14\/multimedia\/14france-1-fwbz\/14france-1-fwbz-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Manhunt Underway in France After Prisoner Escapes in Ambush\" title=\"Manhunt Underway in France After Prisoner Escapes in Ambush\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The black Peugeot 5008 rammed the police van carrying a prisoner as it emerged from a tollbooth in northwestern France. Hooded men with automatic weapons leaped from the car, encircling the van and firing on it with unhurried precision for more than two minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When they were through, two prison guards were dead \u2014 the first to be killed in the line of duty in 32 years \u2014 three more were wounded and the still-handcuffed prisoner the van was transporting, Mohamed Amra, had escaped, setting off a vast manhunt involving several hundred officers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe attack this morning, which took the lives of prison guards, is a shock to us all,\u201d President Emmanuel Macron of France said on X after the attack, which stunned the country with its brazenness and violence. \u201cWe will be uncompromising,\u201d he added, promising to track down the perpetrators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But more than six hours after the attack, no trace of the assailants, who also used a white Audi that followed the van, had been found and the major A13 highway between Rouen and \u00c9vreux, about 85 miles northwest of Paris, remained closed. An incinerated white car was found after the attack about a dozen miles from the scene, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Amra, a mobster known as La Mouche, or the Fly, who has been implicated in international drug trafficking and organized crime, according to French news media reports, remained at large.<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"imageblock-wrapper\">\n<figure class=\"img-sz-small css-1189og3 e1g7ppur0\" aria-label=\"media\" role=\"group\"><figcaption data-testid=\"photoviewer-children-caption\" class=\"css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-jevhma e13ogyst0\">Mohamed Amra escaped from a police van on Tuesday.<\/span><span class=\"css-1u46b97 e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span><span><span aria-hidden=\"false\">via Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was a war operation,\u201d Dominique Rizet, a commentator on police affairs, told the TV network BFMTV. The French authorities have not suggested that Mr. Amra has any links to terrorism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack was captured on security camera footage and video filmed by bystanders that was later posted on X. At a time when France is trying hard to project an image of law and order ahead of the Olympic Games, the images of violence on the main highway from Paris to Normandy were a blow. The attack came just days after the Olympic flame <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/08\/world\/europe\/olympic-torch-france-marseille.html?searchResultPosition=2\" title=\"\">arrived to much fanfare<\/a> in Marseille.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">J\u00e9r\u00f4me Barbier, a resident of Incarville, France, who was on his way to his beehive about 100 yards from the tollbooth, said he heard shooting, but did not see it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was a big, big shooting, it lasted for five minutes,\u201d Mr. Barbier, 58, said in a telephone interview. \u201cThen it calmed down for one to two minutes, and then there was an explosion. And then two more gunshots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Barbier, who said that he had worked for the gendarmerie \u2014 the force that oversees smaller towns and rural and suburban areas in France \u2014 in the 1980s, said he could tell it was \u201cheavy fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a light weapon; it was really powerful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prison guards are usually armed with handguns during transfers, but no armed police escort accompanied the van transporting Mr. Amra from a courthouse in Rouen to a prison in \u00c9vreux, a one-hour journey. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A court in \u00c9vreux sentenced Mr. Amra, 30, last week to 18 months in prison for burglary. His criminal record includes several thefts and at least a dozen convictions. He is also under investigation in Marseille in connection with a kidnapping and homicide case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hugues Vigier, Mr. Amra\u2019s lawyer, told BFMTV that he was \u201ccompletely dumbfounded\u201d by the attack and said it did not \u201cfit the profile\u201d of his client.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack occurred on the same day that a Senate committee completed a report on rampant drug trafficking in France and recommended the creation of a French equivalent to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It said that the government has not taken the measure \u201cof the dimensions of the threat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe extent of drug trafficking gives us the feeling that there is a relationship of strong versus weak, in which the strong are the criminal organizations and the weak is the state,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00f4me Durain, a Socialist senator and one of the two authors of the report, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/societe\/article\/2024\/05\/14\/la-lutte-contre-le-narcotrafic-doit-etre-une-priorite-nationale_6233144_3224.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">told Le Monde<\/a>, a French daily newspaper.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u00c9ric Dupond-Moretti, the justice minister, said one of the guards who was killed was married with two children, and the other was married to a woman who is five months pregnant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">France\u2019s main prison guard unions called for a symbolic shutdown of the country\u2019s jails on Wednesday to honor their dead colleagues and to protest working conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis was an attack of an unparalleled violence, in the brutality and cowardice of the killers,\u201d Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, told the National Assembly, which observed a minute of silence on Tuesday. \u201cWe will spare no effort or means to find them. We will track them down \u2014 and they will pay.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Aurelien Breeden<!-- --> and <!-- -->S\u00e9gol\u00e8ne Le Stradic<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/world\/europe\/france-prison-ambush.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The black Peugeot 5008 rammed the police van carrying a prisoner as it emerged from a tollbooth in northwestern France. Hooded men with automatic weapons leaped from the car, encircling the van and firing on it with unhurried precision for more than two minutes. When they were through, two prison guards were dead \u2014 the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/14\/multimedia\/14france-1-fwbz\/14france-1-fwbz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22166,14265,9403,8468,16557,32223],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50563,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50561\/revisions\/50563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}