France prison van attack: Manhunt as ‘The Fly’ escapes in armed ambush

Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for the escaped French prisoner nicknamed ‘The Fly’ at the request of France’s authorities.

The intergovernmental organisation said in a statement on X on Wednesday that a ‘Red Notice’ search warrant has been issued for fugitive Mohamed Amra.

Hundreds of police fanned out across northern France on a massive manhunt for the on-the-run inmate on Wednesday, a day after he was sprung from a prison van by gunmen in an attack that killed two prison guards.

Tuesday’s attack came on the same day that France’s Senate released a major report on drug trafficking, warning that the country faced a “tipping point” from rising violence.

The report recommended the creation of a French version of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to combat a powerful national drug trade with annual turnover of 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion).

Prison workers held moments of silence Wednesday outside jails in Paris and elsewhere to commemorate the officers who were gunned down in France on Tuesday.

The violence of the attack has shocked the nation.

The French interior minister has expressed hope that Mohamed Amra could be caught “in the coming days”.

Without giving full details about the extent of the manhunt, Gerald Darmanin told RTL radio: “The means employed are considerable. We are progressing a lot.”

A massive manhunt is underway in France for an armed gang that killed two prison officers and seriously injuring three others, to spring an inmate they were escorting.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said “unprecedented” efforts were deployed, with hundreds of officers mobilised in the search for the escaped convict Mohamed Amra and the assailants who ambushed the convoy transporting him on Tuesday.

Without giving full details about the extent of the manhunt, he said 450 officers had been deployed in the region of the attack to search for the assailants and clues about their whereabouts.

As lorries and family-filled cars filed through the motorway toll station at Incarville in north west France, it felt like any other weekday morning.

Firing more than 30 rounds from automatic weapons, the assailants killed two prison guards and injured three more before fleeing with the inmate, 30-year-old Mohamed Amra, in a brazen attack witnessed by startled motorists on the A417 motorway near the town of Val-de-Reuil.

Alex Ross reports:

The manhunt for the killers is being led by the GIPN, the elite Gendarme National Intervention Group.

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’.

Prison officers unions staged protests on Wednesday morning, saying their work was becoming increasingly dangerous.

It follows a Paris Senate report highlighting the ‘Mexicanisation’ of the French drugs trade, with gangs becoming increasingly powerful.

Amra has been linked with one based in Marseilles called ‘The Blacks’.

A gendarme reservist who lives close to the Incarville toll booth said they heard “a very intense series of gunshots” during the attack on the police convoy.

They said: “I was in my garden when it happened.

“I heard a first series of around thirty shots from automatic weapons. A very intense series of gunshots. Then, nothing more.

“The calm lasted a minute, maybe two. Then I heard a very loud bang that sounded like a grenade, followed by two final shots and then that was it.”

One of the unidentified attackers was lightly injured, before the gang sped off in an an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series, which have since both been found abandoned and burned out.

Mohamed Amra, who has a total of 13 convictions to his name, was under “special surveillance” but not considered radicalised or a terrorist suspect, French justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti confirmed on Wednesday.

The 30-year-old is reportedly well known to the police as the boss of a narcotics network and has already been indicted in connection with an execution.

A police source said: “He is suspected of having ordered an assassination in Marseille on 17 June, 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 kidnapping and sequestration leading to death by Marseille police, said a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor’s office.

CCTV footage showed an SUV ramming into the prison van at a toll booth before men attacked it with automatic weapons and took an inmate out of the vehicle before setting it on fire and fleeing the scene.

A major manhunt was triggered by the incident in Val-de-Reuil in the Eure region.

The inmate is Mohamed Amra – also known as “The Fly”, a 30-year-old drug dealer from northern France, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office and police sources.

He was convicted of burglary on 10 May and was being held at the Val-de-Reuil prison.

Holly Patrick reports: