France prison van attack – live: Guards ‘slaughtered like dogs’ named as nationwide manhunt enters second day
Two prison officers who were “slaughtered like dogs” in a fatal attack in France have been named as the nationwide manhunt for their killers and the escaped inmate nicknamed ‘The Fly’ enters its second day.
Suspected drug boss Mohamed Amra, 30, was being transported from a court hearing in Rouen to a secure jail in Evreux when his prison van was ambushed by four gunmen shortly after 11am on Tuesday.
Fabrice Moello, a 52-year-old father of two, and Arnaud Garcia, a 35-year-old whose wife was five months pregnant, were killed in machine gun fire on the A154 motorway in Val-de-Reuil in Normandy, while three more guards were left seriously injured.
Naming them for the first time on Wednesday, French justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said the two prison officers – who both came from Caen – were “slaughtered like dogs by men for whom life means nothing”.
The escaped prisoner fled alongside the attackers in two vehicles, which were abandoned and found burned a short while later.
A police source told Le Parisien that Amra is the head of a narcotics network, and had been jailed for 18 months last week for a series of burglaries.
Hundreds of police officers and gendarmes had been mobilised, with President Emmanuel Macron vowing that everything was being done to find the perpetrators.
Footage from the scene near the commune of Incarville appeared to show a hooded attacker in all black firing an assault rifle at the prisoner convoy. One of the attackers was injured in retaliatory fire, a prison officer union boss said.
- For more: Elrisala website and for social follow us on Facebook
- Source of information and images “independent“
