A radical Islamist on the run from prison has evaded French police authorities for over a week, having warned inmates they would soon hear about him.
The 30-year-old man was granted temporary day release from Chauconin-Meaux prison in Seine-et-Marne, east of Paris, where he was jailed for armed and violent robbery in 2013. Police have been hunting the radical Islamist on since he failed to return from his temporary leave of absence last Sunday, 20 September, reports French news weekly Le Point.
Of particular concern to French authorities is the report that the absconded criminal, who returned from previous prison furloughs without incident, told fellow inmates they “will soon be hearing about him”.
It was previously reported that a well-known Islamist from the same prison, Jérémy Bailly, was the missing prisoner. This led to public criticism aimed at those who allowed him to leave. However, French authorities have now denied that he is the target of their search, reports La Marne, although they have not named the escaped criminal.
French prisons, in common with many around the world, has a poor history of prison radicalisation, reports The Local.
Cherif Kouachi, one of the Islamist gunmen who conducted the attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January, is understood to have become more radical during a three year prison sentence.
While behind bars at Fleury-Merogisou prison, he met Amedy Coulibaly, another repeat criminal offender. In January he shot and killed a policewoman in southern Paris, followed by four Jewish shoppers during the kosher supermarket hostage incident (pictured above).
Both Kouachi and Coulibaly were influenced by Djamel Beghal, a prominent French Islamist sentenced to 10 years in prison for planning suicide bomb attacks and plotting to destroy the US embassy in Paris in 2001.
As Breitbart London previously reported, the risk of prison radicalisation led to the Quilliam Foundation counter-extremism think tank recommending imprisoned Islamic extremists should have their own segregated prison wings similar to sex offenders. This would be to prevent the radicalisation of more moderate inmates among Britain’s growing Muslim prisoner population.
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