Huge manhunt in France for prisoner after two officers killed in ambush

[Mr. Sparkle]

Source: BBC

• At least two French prison officers have been killed in an ambush on a prison van near Rouen in Normandy, France
• The prisoner was being taken from court to a prison and escaped after the attack
• French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti says three other officers were seriously injured
• The officers were shot with "heavy weapons" by the prisoner's accomplices, the minister says
• Several hundred police officers and gendarmes are involved in the manhunt
• French prosecutors name the inmate as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994 - he was previously convicted of aggravated robbery and charged with abduction leading to death

Mohamed Amra, the 30-year-old inmate freed by the heavily armed gang, was supposed to be under very close supervision because of his long criminal record. According to the French judicial authorities, he had been found guilty of theft - and was serving an 18-month jail sentence - but was also facing new charges connected to kidnapping and a drug-related killing in the southern port city of Marseille. He was being escorted to a court house related to those new charges when the ambush happened. French media reports claim he’s considered to be a powerful drug baron

Amra’s bloody escape comes the same day as the French Senate unveiled a highly alarming report on the spread of the illegal drug trade across the country, and called for urgent new measures to tackle the problem. The senate commission’s report said the narcotics business was spreading to small towns and the countryside, triggering violent turf wars between gangs in territories that until now had been considered unscathed. Just yesterday Nicolas Bessone, the prosecutor for the Marseille region, admitted on the main French television news programme France 2 that drug gangs had become so powerful and wealthy they were managing to infiltrate and corrupt civil servants within the court system in the city of Marseille.



Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-69009025

[jimfields33]

1. France is having a lot of problems lately.

Hopefully they will catch this person. The ability to escape is not a good look.

[Torchlight]

3. lol

[Prairie Gates]

2. There's a good depiction of modern day Marseilles in the Matt Damon film Stillwater

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Marseille

Out here being Marseille!

My great grandfather (Papa Georges) was born there. Oh the stories he could tell about growing up in early 20th century Marseille! It was like how my husband describes the Bronx in the 70's -

Everything was a shake down and a scam.