French prisons to jam mobiles after gangster’s daring escape

MOBILE phones will be jammed in French prisons following the dramatic helicopter escape of the country’s most notorious gangster.

Nicole Belloubet, the French justice minister, yesterday resisted demands for her resignation following the escape of Rédoine Faïd on Sunday.

“It goes without saying that I am entirely responsible for what happens in my administration, but I do not personally make these decisions,” Ms Belloubet told RTL radio.

The government has been hugely embarrassed by Faïd’s second escape in five years. Thousands of police have been hunting for the fugitive, but his whereabouts remain unknown.

Ms Belloubet said mobile phones, often used illicitly by convicts, would be jammed in prisons from October.

Faïd’s accomplices seized a helicopter at gunpoint and forced the pilot to land in a prison yard before cutting through doors. Stéphane Buy, the pilot, told RTL that he was hit with a pistol butt and the assailants threatened his family to force him to cooperate.

Faïd, 46, who masterminded a robbery in which a policewoman was killed, was last seen in CCTV footage, in a white van driving out of a shopping centre in a Paris suburb on Sunday.

♦ The French government called for calm after youths clashed with police and torched property in Nantes following the death of a 22-year-old man shot by police during a vehicle check. Officers and soldiers were on high alert yesterday after a shopping centre was set on fire in Breil, following the death of Aboubakar Fall, from Paris. His vehicle was stopped as police suspected it was being used for drug dealing, stated Le Parisien.