WORLD NEWS: 25 ARRESTED IN POLICE RAIDS AFTER PRISON ATTACKS IN FRANCE
Read Time:2 Minute, 47 Second
Agency Report
Twenty-five people were arrested in police raids across France on Monday after a series of coordinated attacks on prisons rattled the government this month, a source close to the case said.
The source told AFP that the early-morning arrests occurred in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, and outside of Paris.
This month, unidentified attackers attacked a number of prisons and other establishments throughout France, setting cars on fire, sprinkling automatic gunfire at one prison’s entrance, and leaving enigmatic graffiti.
The attacks have caused embarrassment for the right-wing administration, whose tough-talking justice and interior ministers, Bruno Retailleau and Gerald Darmanin, have promised to step up the war on drugs and drug-related crime.
President Emmanuel Macron has promised the attackers would be “found, tried and punished.”
French anti-terror prosecutors, who are in charge of the inquiry because the assaults were organised, made 22 arrests in a statement on Monday. Three more were made later in the day.
According to the BFMTV channel, a number of the arrests occurred inside jails, with police removing alleged operation leaders—who are thought to have led them from within from their cells to question them.
Anti-terror prosecutor’s office and the office for the fight against organised crime, known by its acronym JUNALCO, said that the attacks were “likely” to be part of “very serious organised crime”.
The investigation has led to “significant progress” in identifying people who might have carried out the attacks and the instigators, said the prosecutors.
They said they had identified around 15 incidents between April 13 and 21, but other attacks have been recorded at other prisons, although links cannot be established at this stage.
READ ALSO:
WORLD NEWS: STUDENT STABS AT LEAST FOUR IN SOUTH KOREAN HIGH SCHOOL ATTACK
Nearly 200 investigators have been mobilised during the two-week probe.
Justice Minister Darmanin has accused people linked to drug trafficking of being responsible.
“Thank you to magistrates and law enforcement for arresting the alleged perpetrators of the attacks against prison officers and our country’s prisons early this morning,” Darmanin said on X on Monday.
“We remain committed to the law and to the Republic in our relentless fight against drug trafficking.”
Darmanin has said there could be a link to his plan to lock up 200 of France’s 700 most dangerous drug traffickers in two top-security prisons.
Retailleau also congratulated the investigators, praising their “great professionalism” which “made it possible to achieve results in a very short time”.
The raids come as French parliament’s upper and lower houses prepare to vote this week on a bill aimed at stepping up the fight against drug traffickers, with a view to its final adoption.
On April 13 in Agen in southwestern France, the tag “DDPF” — standing for “Rights of French Prisoners” — appeared next to seven cars set on fire in the car park of a prison staff training centre.
This was followed by a series of arson attacks targeting cars of prison staff and other assaults. A jail near the southern city of Toulon was sprayed with automatic gunfire.
While the modus operandi of some of the attacks bore the hallmarks of organised crime, other actions were reminiscent of the tactics of the ultra-left, according to a police source.
AFP
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0