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The director of Baumettes prison in Marseille, as well as one of her deputies, were forced to temporarily leave their positions after receiving death threats. They were placed under police protection.
Threatened with death, the director of the Baumettes prison in Marseille and one of her deputies were temporarily removed from their duties and are subject to protection measures, we learned this Friday, December 6. The Ministry of Justice described the situation as “exceptionally serious and serious”, specifying that Minister of Justice Didier Migaud personally spoke with the prison officers concerned “and assured them of his protection and support”. The minister found it “unacceptable that justice personnel are thus threatened in the exercise of their duties.”
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A “contract” targeting the prison officer would have been issued by an inmate, suspected of belonging to the DZ Mafia drug trafficking gang. “A reward of 120,000 euros” was offered by “a “thug” linked to organized crime”, in a video posted on social networks, the UFAP Unsa PACA Corse union confirmed this Friday in a press release. Two men, the alleged executors of this contract, were arrested in connection with this affair, during the night from Sunday to Monday. The detainee behind the contract, suspected of belonging to the DZ Mafia, would also have been placed in police custody.
“It’s a first”
According to UFAP Unsa PACA Corse, “the two hooded men, armed with an automatic pistol and a knife, were arrested near the home of the targeted agent”. “This call for murder goes beyond all limits and illustrates the unbearable dangers to which prison staff are exposed,” adds the union. In the middle of the week, the FO Justice union also denounced an “unprecedented threshold”. “A contract on the heads of two agents from organized crime is a first,” commented Jessy Zagari, regional delegate of the FO Justice union.
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This new episode comes after several events in recent months such as the fire in the accommodation of an agent or the attack on a supervisor at the Aix-Luynes prison, where many delinquents linked to Marseille narco-banditism are also incarcerated.
In addition to these phenomena of threats and intimidation of officials, violence linked to drug trafficking in the Marseille region has left 23 dead since January, according to an AFP report. In 2023, drug banditry had cost the lives of 49 people in Marseille, against the backdrop of a battle for territory between two gangs, the DZ Mafia and Yoda, the first having finally gained the upper hand.
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