How deadly France prison van ambush unfolded as ‘The Fly’ Mohamed Amra remains on the run

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.

But at just before 9am on Tuesday, drama suddenly unfolded as a gang of masked gunmen ambushed a prison convoy at the booth and freed a suspected drugs lord nicknamed “The Fly”.

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.

“I heard a first series of around thirty shots from automatic weapons,” said a gendarme reservist who was in the garden of his home nearby.

“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.”

For updates on the manhunt as more emerges on the incident, follow our live blog by clicking here

In the hours that followed the deadly ambush, it became clear what had happened.

Amra, who is said to have ties to a gang in Marseille, was being taken from a court hearing in Rouen to his prison in Evreux when his prison van was targeted as it went though the toll barrier at Incarville.

A waiting black Peugeot vehicle pulled out and rammed into the front of it, bringing it to a sudden stop, said Paris state prosecutor Laure Beccuau.

“Men with long guns got out, joined by other armed men who got out of an Audi vehicle, which was likely following the prison vehicle,”said Mr Beccuau.

The masked men fired their weapons at the prison van and a convoy vehicle behind it, killing the two officers and injuring three, who remained in intensive care on Wednesday morning.

Were you at the tollbooth at the time of the incident, or know of someone who was? Email alexander.ross@independent.co.uk

At one point a member of the gang, who were all wearing black sports apparel with their hoods up, made sure a victim was dead by firing a “double tap” shot to the head.

Footage taken by motorists appeared to show the men opening doors to the van before a man, believed to be Amra, stepped out. As they flee, one member appeared to attempt to set alight the black Peugeot.

The gang then sped off in an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series vehicles, which have since both been found abandoned and burned out.

As a huge manhunt was launched involving around 450 officers including the country’s anti-terrorist police unit the GIGN, president Emmanuel Macron vowed that “everything is being done to find the perpetrators”.

On Wednesday morning, the two killed prison guards were named.

Father-of-two Fabrice Moello, aged 52, and Arnaud Garcia, 35, were identified by authorities as it also emerged Mr Garcia’s wife was five months pregnant.

French justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said the men, both from Caen, were “slaughtered like dogs by men for whom life means nothing”.

He confirmed that Amra, who has a total of 13 convictions to his name and was reportedly well-known to the police as the boss of a narcotics network, was under special surveillance, but not considered radicalised or a terrorist suspect.

Amra was also indicted by prosecutors for a kidnapping in Marseille that led to a death in 2022.

However, his lawyer, Hugues Vigier told French broadcaster BFMTV that the deadily ambush “does not correspond to the impression that I had of him”.

Mr Vigier said his assistant met with Amra on Tuesday morning in a short meeting in which the fugitive appeared “perfectly normal”.

“He knew about [Tuesday’s] transfer so it is possible that he’d have told other people,” he added.

Amra’s mother, who claimed to barely talk to her son, said she broke down in tears when she heard about the ambush. “How can lives be taken away in this way?” she told RTL.

Amra had reportedly been held in prisons in Marseille, Paris and Rouen before being given an 18-month prison sentence for theft last week.

But it’s his link the death of a man kidnapped in Marseille which suggests the ambush involved serious criminals.

The country is said to be facing an “explosion” of drug gangs leading to an increase in violence across the country, a report published by the French Senate said on Tuesday.

Amra has been linked to one gang based in Marseilles called “The Blacks”.

As the manhunt for Amra and the gunmen continued, the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organised Crime opened an investigation into murder and attempted murder by an organised gang.

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.

In support of the two prison officers who died, French prison officer unions called for walkouts at prisons across the country. Mr Dupond-Moretti has agreed to meet with union representatives on issues such as safety.