Two prison officers were shot dead and three seriously wounded on Tuesday when an alleged drugs lord nicknamed “The Fly” was freed from a prison van by an armed gang in France.
Mohammed Amra, 30, was on the run with four other men following the morning bloodbath close to the town of Val-de-Reuil in Normandy.
Amra is well known to the police as the boss of a narcotics network, and for allegedly ordering a mafia-style execution two years ago.
It was at around 11am when automatic gunfire was heard at the Incarville toll booth, on the A154 motorway, around an hour’s drive from Paris.
Stark images showed men wearing black sports clothes, with hoods up, as they carried out the killings using automatic machine pistols.
It all took place in broad daylight in less than five minutes, with shocked motorists looking on, said witnesses.
The prisoner and gang members initially escaped in two cars – an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series, and the Audi was later found abandoned and burned out.
The two men killed were identified as agents from the Regional Centre for Judicial Extractions (PREJ), based in Caen, without their names being disclosed.
One was a 21-year-old father of two who leaves a widow, and the other an expectant father whose wife was five months pregnant.
Éric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, said the three wounded guards were all in a “life threatening” condition.
By mid-afternoon, 200 gendarmes had joined members of the elite GIGN anti-terrorist police unit in a nationwide search for Amra and his accomplices.
“They are armed and very dangerous, and everything is being done to find them,” said a police spokesman.
Amra was being transported between detention centres in Rouen and Évreux, after last week being sentenced to 18 months for a series of aggravated thefts.
He used a gun to rob supermarkets and other businesses in the Évreux suburbs in the summer of 2019.
Amra was also being held in connection with the execution on a man in Marseille on June 17, 2022.
Amra, who had a total of 13 convictions to his name, was under ‘special surveillance’, but not considered radicalised or a terrorist suspect.A police source told RTL: “He is suspected of having ordered an assassination in Marseille on June 17, 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.”
Amra was indicted for for kidnapping and sequestration leading to death by Marseille police, said a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Alexandre Rassaërt, president of the Eure Departmental Council, which covers Vale-de-Reuil, said: “I was frozen with horror when I learned of the real carnage that took place at the Incarville tollbooth.
“I sincerely hope that the gang of killers who carried out this bloody attack will be quickly arrested.
“All my thoughts go to the families of the service agents. penitentiary who escorted the detainees and who were killed or seriously injured during this attack which gave them no chance.
“I also think of all the prison administration guards who, every day, guard prisoners at the risk of their lives.”
French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke out following the murders, saying on X: “This morning’s attack, which cost the lives of prison administration agents, is a shock for all of us.
“The Nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues. Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people. We will be intractable.”
Mr Dupond-Moretti said: “All my thoughts are with the victims, their families and their colleagues.”
Following the ambush, the A154 was shut, with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, saying on X: “All means are being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police officers and gendarmes are mobilised.”
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 punishable with a life sentence.
They are also investigating ‘escape in an organised gang’, ‘acquisition and possession of weapons of war’ and ‘criminal association with a view to the commission of a crime,’ said Mr Dupond-Moretti.
