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PARIS - Hundreds of police are hunting a prisoner nicknamed “The Fly” who was freed in an ambush by gunmen who shot dead two prison officers in northern France.

Mohammed Amra, 30, is on the run with four other men following Tuesday morning’s 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.

The two officers were killed and three others seriously wounded when Amra was released from a prison van that had stopped at a toll booth on a busy motorway.

Those who died in a firefight were identified as a 21-year-old father of two who leaves a widow, and an expectant father whose wife was five months pregnant.

Éric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, said the injured guards were all in a “life threatening” condition.

Amra, who has a total of 13 convictions to his name, was under “special surveillance”, but not considered radicalised or a terrorist suspect, said Mr Dupond-Moretti.

Amra’s nickname is linked to his multiple convictions and involvement in many types of crime, from alleged murder to aggravated burglary.

A source familiar with Amra’s criminal history said he was “nicknamed the fly, because he’s everywhere, like an annoying fly.

“He’s now with his gang members, and is considered to be extremely dangerous, and armed with some very sophisticated weapons.”

It was at around 11am on Tuesday when automatic gunfire was heard at the Incarville toll booth, on the A154, around an hour’s drive from Paris.

Stark CCTV images showed men wearing black sports clothes, with hoods up, carrying out the killings using automatic machine pistols.

Footage shared online from a bus showed armed attackers during the ambush.

They first used a car to halt a prison van taking Amara from prison to a court appearance in nearby Rouen.

One of the unidentified attackers was lightly injured, before the gang sped off in an an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series.

The Audi was later found abandoned and burned out, but there was no trace of the assailants.

By the evening, 200 gendarmes had joined members of the elite GIGN – the Gendarme National Intervention Group – in a nationwide search for Amra and his accomplices.

Amra was 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.

A polices 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 kidnapping and sequestration leading to death by Marseille police, said a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Following the latest killings, 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’.

Earlier this year, Amra was being held at the Baumettes prison in Marseille, before being transferred to La Santé in Paris, and then Évreux.

Commenting on the latest shootings, 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.’

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.’


WHO is the escapee ?


Two days ago, French police caught Mohamed Amra trying to saw through the bars of his prison cell.

The incident prompted his relocation to a disciplinary unit and his surveillance level was raised to level three, one below the “special surveillance” level reserved for France’s most dangerous prisoners.

It was to prove a fateful decision, and the 30-year-old convict is now the target of a massive manhunt after he was broken out of a police van in a brazen and brutal daylight raid.

Nicknamed “La Mouche” (The Fly), Amra has been described in the French press as a “high-flying bandit” involved in both international drug trafficking between the French Caribbean and mainland France. He is also “suspected of masterminding a drugs-related assassination attempt on a French citizen in Spain in the summer of 2023”.

Amra was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment by the Évreux magistrates’ court last Tuesday for aggravated robberies, including thefts from supermarkets and shops in the suburbs of Évreux between August and October 2019.

He had also been indicted by the specialised inter-regional court in Marseille for “kidnapping leading to death” and was then held at the Evreux prison on suspicion of ordering a murder in Marseille on June 17 2022, according to RTL. On that date, the charred body of a man was found in a burnt-out vehicle in Le Rove, near Marseille. The victim had clearly been shot in the head.

According to the Paris public prosecutor’s office, which has taken over the investigation, the trafficker had been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment resulting in death by the Marseille JIRS (specialised inter-regional court).

The unsuccessful hit he allegedly ordered was filmed by terrified tourists in Marbella in July last year. According to Le Parisien, the Spain contract was part of a drugs turf war between Amra and a rival known as “Mehdi”. His rival then reportedly ordered a revenge hit in Evreux that same month in which two people died, one of them close to Amra.

He is also under investigation for “attempted homicide in an organised gang” in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. At the time of the attack, he was being transferred back to Evreux from Rouen, where he had been interviewed by prosecutors over this case.

 

 

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Category: Europe
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DUBLIN/MADRID - The Irish and Spanish premiers have had further discussions on the recognition of the state of Palestine.

Taoiseach Simon Harris and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez spoke by telephone on Monday morning following discussions in Dublin and Brussels last month.

Mr Harris said it was their third conversation in recent weeks, and that they are eager to make progress on this very shortly.

“We discussed the dire situation in the Middle East and particularly in Gaza and agreed to continue working together to push for an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional and immediate release of all remaining hostages and for a surge in humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza,” he said.

“Prime Minister Sanchez and I shared our deep concern about reports that Israel has ordered an evacuation of civilians from parts of Rafah in preparation of a military operation.

“I reiterate my call on Israel not to undertake a full-scale military operation in Rafah. The international community has made it very clear that an Israeli military operation in Rafah will inevitably lead to disastrous humanitarian consequences and the deaths of large numbers of innocent civilians.

“The protection of civilians is an obligation under international humanitarian law.”

Mr Harris said the two men also “reaffirmed the wish for both Spain and Ireland to recognise Palestine”.

“I also discussed with Prime Minister Sanchez our ongoing work together on recognising the state of Palestine,” he said.

“We reaffirmed the wish for both Spain and Ireland to recognise Palestine, agreeing that formal recognition is an important part of acknowledging that a two-state solution is the only way to bring about peace and stability in the region, with a state of Palestine and the state of Israel living side-by-side in peace and security.

“Prime Minister Sanchez and I are both eager to make progress on this very shortly and we agreed to remain in close contact.

“We are co-ordinating efforts with other European states to recognise a Palestinian state alongside like-minded countries. This will be done in a way that can have the most positive impact on the situation on the ground.

“We also took stock of the work under way in New York on a resolution on Palestine’s membership of the UN. Ireland fully supports Palestinian membership of the UN.

“The UN General Assembly will consider this issue on May 10 and we expect a large majority of UN member to take a similar position.”

 

 

 

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OXFORD/CAMBRIDGE - Oxford and Cambridge university students on Monday launched Gaza encampments on campuses as protests across UK universities spread.

Videos posted to social media show rows of tents on campus lawns and banners that read: “Welcome to the people’s university for Palestine.”

Tents sprang up outside the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum and on the lawn of King’s College at the University of Cambridge on Monday morning.

It follows protests earlier this week across the UK, including at Goldsmiths in London and encampments in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester.

The movement has spread from the US, where thousands of university students were arrested after clashes with police.

A group called Cambridge for Palestine said on Monday it was calling for the university to disclose and divest “from its financial and professional support” of the war in Gaza.

Organisers of the group posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, of their members marching onto the lawn with tents, camping packs and sleeping bags, saying they “refuse to sit idly by”.

A rally is expected to be held in Cambridge at 3pm.

Rishi Sunak was set to hold a summit with university heads amid concern over pro-Palestinian protests which have triggered more than 2,100 arrests at campuses across the US.

The Prime Minister summoned vice chancellors to Downing Street to seek reassurance that they are tackling antisemitism at their institutions.

On Thursday Pro-Palestinian protesters forced their way into the library at Goldsmiths, University of London and barricaded themselves in, with “From the river to the sea” and “Shut it down for Palestine” banners seen in the windows.

Protests have also been staged at Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Warwick, Newcastle and Sheffield universities this week.

 

 

 

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PARIS - A well-known British Palestinian surgeon who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said he was denied entry to France on Saturday to speak at a French Senate meeting about the Israel-Hamas war.

Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta was placed in a holding zone in the Charles de Gaulle airport and will be expelled, according to French Sen. Raymonde Poncet-Monge, who had invited him to speak at the Senate.

‘’It’s a disgrace,’’ Poncet-Monge posted on X.

A French official said that Abu Sitta was turned away because he is barred from entry to all Schengen zone countries based on a German request. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named according to government policy, wouldn’t provide details or further information.

Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe. Germany denied him entry last month, and France and Germany are part of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone. Abu Sitta posted Saturday that he was being sent back to London.

The French Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority would not comment on what happened or give an explanation.

Abu Sitta had been invited by France’s left-wing Ecologists group in the Senate to speak at a colloquium Saturday about the situation in Gaza, according to the Senate press service. The gathering included testimony from medics, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza-related experience.

Last month Abu Sitta was denied entry to Germany to take part in a pro-Palestinian conference. He said he was stopped at passport control, held for several hours and then told he had to return to the U.K. He said airport police told him he was refused entry due to “the safety of the people at the conference and public order.”

Abu Sitta, who recently volunteered with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, has worked during multiple conflicts in the Palestinian territories, beginning in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

France has seen tensions related to the Mideast conflict almost daily since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel. In recent days and weeks police have cleared out students at French campuses holding demonstrations and sit-ins similar to those in the United States.

 

 

 

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