Sentenced to fourteen years of criminal imprisonment in October 2023 for his spectacular escape by helicopter from Réau prison, repeat robber Rédoine Faïd, 52, is in police custody on Tuesday January 7 for other escape plans.
Rédoine Faïd was taken from his cell in Vendin-le-Vieil prison (Pas-de-Calais) to be placed in police custody, said a source close to the case and the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming a RTL information. Investigators from the Yvelines judicial police came “to hear him at his place of detention”said the prosecution.
The robber is heard as part of an investigation by the national jurisdiction for the fight against organized crime (Junalco), under the direction of an investigating judge, opened on September 9, 2021 for criminal association with a view to preparing of crimes or offenses punishable by ten years of imprisonment (in this case, in particular, escape into an organized gang and crimes and offenses supporting the realization of this criminal project), detailed the prosecution.
Three months on the run in 2018
The investigations concern facts “until May 2023”according to the same source. At that time, he was incarcerated in Fleury-Mérogis prison (Essonne) awaiting his trial for a successful escape, on 1er July 2018, from Réau prison (Seine-et-Marne).
That morning, an armed commando of hooded men landed in a helicopter in front of the penitentiary establishment after taking the pilot hostage. They had thrown smoke bombs, sawed several gates and forced open the doors with a grinder to access the visiting rooms where the robber was and extract him. The aircraft then took off to the applause of the inmates.
The former robber was arrested after three months on the run in Creil (Oise), the town where he grew up, thanks to information about a male figure under a niqab.
No shots were fired during this escape which lasted “seven minutes thirty-three”insisted Rédoine Faïd and her defense during her trial which lasted a month and a half before the Paris Assize Court. A total of twelve people were tried for this escape, including two of his brothers and three of his nephews. Rédoine Faïd was sentenced to fourteen years of criminal imprisonment in October 2023.
Hunger strike
In its reasoning for the sentences, consulted by Agence France-Presse, the court underlined the “exceptional gravity” facts, involving weapons of war, preparation over several months and the endangering of human lives. Regarding the former robber, in a state of “recurrence”she emphasized her “total determination to escape from the prison environment”.
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At the time of his escape from Réau prison, Rédoine Faïd was serving sentences for robberies, one of which in 2010 cost the life of a municipal police officer. He was also serving a sentence for a previous spectacular escape in 2013 from Sequedin prison (North), during which guards were taken hostage and doors destroyed with explosives.
Before his last conviction, his sentence was scheduled to end in 2046. Since the confusion of sentences does not exist for escapes, it could be extended to 2060, excluding remission of sentence.
Rédoine Faïd went on a hunger strike for a few days in mid-December to demand the lifting of her solitary confinement in Vendin-le-Vieil prison. He has already spent more than eleven years in solitary confinement. His request to lift this regime was rejected on December 2 by the sentence enforcement chamber of the Douai Court of Appeal, which found that he was not suffering from unworthy conditions of detention.
This decision contradicted an opinion from the Béthune sentence enforcement chamber, which had ordered on November 18 the end of his isolation, ruling that this regime, combined with visiting rooms equipped with hygiaphone and the absence of detention units family life since 2018, was “contrary to the dignity of the human person”.
