French prisoner escapes after dynamiting through doors
One of France's best-known prisoners has escaped from jail after dynamiting his way out through the gates.
Officers patrol the yard of Sequedin prison, after an inmate, Redoine Faid, managed to escape. Photo: AFP
By Harriet Alexander
3:13PM BST 13 Apr 2013
Redoine Faid, who published a book on life as a criminal in France's tough city suburbs, took four prison guards hostage inside Sequedin prison near Lille on Saturday morning. He then set off a series of explosions, blowing open five prison doors in turn, allegedly using explosives that his wife had smuggled into prison that morning wrapped in handkerchiefs.
Photos taken immediately after the explosion showed a door blasted open, the reinforcements hanging out from within the white metal barrier.
Faid, 40, released the guards but escaped in a car which was later found burnt out near Ronchin, south of Lille. Police were trying to trace a second vehicle to which he was thought to have switched.
"It happened very quickly, it was clearly very well organised, and we are still busy putting the facts together," a local administrative official said.
Faid's lawyer, Jean-Louis Pelletier, told French newspaper Le Parisien that he was "not at all surprised" that his client had escaped.
"That a prisoner should escape is, in principal, not particularly surprising," he said. "Especially when the prisoner is someone in his situation, and, if I may say so, someone with his social network. There was certainly the possibility that this could happen."
Mr Pelletier, who also represented Jacques Mesrine, the most infamous criminal in French history and the subject of a celebrated eponymous film, described Faid as "remarkably intelligent".
Christiane Taubira, the justice minister, visited the prison after the escape to see for herself how it occurred. "Given the severity of the events, the justice minister has decided to travel to the site," said a spokeswoman.
Etiene Dobremetz, the prison guards' union representative, said that the four men taken hostage had been deeply traumatised. He said that Faid's wife had provided the explosives – a claim denied by her lawyer, who said that she had not visited the prison that morning.
Faid was described by Frederic Fevre, the prosecutor for Lille, as a "particularly dangerous prisoner". He had a reputation for attacking armoured vehicles carrying cash, and was serving a prison sentence for a May 2010 armed robbery in which a policewoman was killed.
Born in the socially-deprived Paris satellite town of Creil – a municipality known for its gritty housing estates and high unemployment – Faid grew up as a juvenile delinquent before graduating to armed robbery. He spent eight years evading the law, staging a series of brazen robberies and taking hostages.
In 1995 he took the manager of BNP bank in Creil hostage, along with his wife and four children. Two years later he held a jeweller and his wife at gunpoint while he raided their store. In October 1998 he took a Swiss policeman hostage, before fleeing to Germany.
In 1998 he was sentenced to 30 years for the catalogue of at least eight armed robberies and bank thefts, but in 2009 he was released on parole.
A year later he published his book, Thief: The great banditry of the suburbs, in which he recounted his life story and claimed to have put his past behind him. He said his life of crime was inspired by American films such as Scarface and Heat – in which actor Robert de Niro carries out an armoured car heist – and was dubbed "the most talented thief in France".
Faid went on to become something of a media star, sought for his commentary on France's troubled banlieus and their social problems.
However, in January 2011, three days after he appeared on a Canal Plus programme to discuss the gang problems, Faid was named as the chief suspect in the botched 2010 robbery, which cost the life of 26-year-old policewoman Aurelie Fouquet.
Some 27 people were arrested in a sting operation following the murder – but Faid escaped.
He was finally arrested in June 2011 and sent to prison for eight years – the prison from which he fled on Saturday.
