PARIS (Reuters) – Interpol issued on Wednesday at France’s request an international wanted notice against Mohamed Amra, a prisoner who escaped during Tuesday’s attack on a prison convoy, which cost the lives of two officials.
While hundreds of gendarmes and investigators are mobilized in France to try to find the fugitive and his accomplices, a “red notice” from Interpol indicates that the French authorities wish to broaden the search beyond the country.
Mohamed Arma escaped on Tuesday during the attack by several heavily armed men on the convoy which transported him to the Incarville tollbooth, in Eure.
Two prison officers, aged 34 and 52, were killed in this attack and three others seriously injured.
This escape and the violence of the operation caused great excitement. At the call of their unions, prison administration officials organized a “dead prison” day on Wednesday with many establishments blocked across the country.
Mohamed Amra, nicknamed “The Fly”, was imprisoned in the Evreux remand center for burglary and criminal association. This 30-year-old man is also indicted in Marseille for kidnapping and sequestration leading to death.
The attack took place on the journey which brought him back to the Evreux remand center after an interrogation by an investigating judge in Rouen.
During questions to the government, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declared on Wednesday that the investigation was progressing, while refusing to say more. He assured that Mohamed Amra and his accomplices would be hunted down, found and punished.
(Writing by Zhifan Liu and Bertrand Boucey, editing by Kate Entringer)
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