After an attack on a van carrying a prisoner who managed to flee amid the chaos resulted in the deaths of two prison guards and the injuries of three more, a manhunt was launched in France on Tuesday.
French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told reporters in a statement that the convoy was being used to move a prisoner from a courthouse to a jail in the northern city of Rouen when it came under attack by people brandishing “heavy weapons.”
The prisoner was able to flee after the car was struck by other cars at a highway toll, according to the French news agency AFP.
“All means are being used to find these criminals,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated. “On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes were mobilized.”
In a social media posting, French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people.”
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“The nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues,” Macron continued.
The French media identified the inmate as Mohamed Amra, a convicted burglar known by the moniker La Mouche, or “The Fly.”
According to public prosecutor Laure Beccuau, who was quoted by the Associated Press, the suspect is also being looked into in connection with an other killing case in Marseille and an alleged kidnapping.
Images taken at the scene of the ambush revealed a large police presence in addition to a forensic tent erected around many vehicles.
Beccuau claimed that a murder inquiry was in progress and that the heinous attack on the jail caravan was being investigated as possible organized crime.
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