Two French prison officers killed in van attack, prisoner escapes

At least two French prison officers were killed and others injured on Tuesday, May 14, in an attack on a prison van carrying an escaped prisoner, a police source told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti, who oversees prison administration, said two agents were killed and three were “seriously injured.” Hundreds of security forces personnel were deployed to conduct a manhunt to find the attackers and the inmate who was still at large.

The ramming attack occurred late morning at a toll booth in Incarville, in the Eure department of northern France, another source familiar with the case added. The prisoner was transported between the cities of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy. According to a police source, the attack was carried out by a team of several people who arrived in two vehicles and later fled. One of them was also injured, a police source said. It was initially not clear how many attackers there were in total.

A GIGN special police unit was dispatched to arrest the suspects. There was a traffic delay on the A154 motorway where the incident occurred.

Paris prosecutor Beccuau named the escaped prisoner Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, and said he was convicted last week of aggravated robbery and also charged with kidnapping resulting in death. The case was handed over to prosecutors at France’s Office to Combat Organized Crime, known by the acronym JUNALCO.

“We will be uncompromising”

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on . We will be uncompromising.”

Dupond-Moretti immediately went to a crisis team in his ministry. “These are people for whom life doesn’t matter. They will be arrested, tried and punished according to the crime they committed,” he said.

Both officers killed were men and were the first prison officers killed in the line of duty since 1992, he added. One of them was married with two children, while the other “left behind a wife who was five months pregnant,” he said.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote on X that he had ordered the activation of the French Epervier plan, a special operation by the gendarmerie in such situations. “Every means is being used to find these criminals. On my instructions, several hundred police and gendarmes were mobilized,” he said.

“I am petrified by horror at the real carnage that took place at the Incarville toll booth,” said Alexandre Rassaert, chairman of the Eure municipal council. “I hope with all my heart that the hit squad that carried out this bloody attack is quickly arrested.”