Since the end of the morning, an inmate from the remand center had been holding four nurses and a supervisor in the establishment’s health unit.
The individual was arrested, we learned at 3:45 p.m.
The hostages were not injured but will be examined by doctors.
Relief at the Arles central prison (Bouches-du-Rhône) where since the end of the morning, an individual, incarcerated in the Arles penitentiary establishment since 2023 and eligible for release in 2031, was holding several staff members hostage. He was arrested around 3:30 p.m. after the Raid’s intervention, we learned a quarter of an hour later.
During treatment in the prison health unit, this 37-year-old man, detained as part of criminal proceedings for rape and convicted several times for acts of “violence” or “aggravated theft by violence”, had taken the opportunity to threaten, with a weapon, four nursing staff at the remand center as well as a prison guard. This prisoner, originally from Guyana and who “at this stage does not have a psychiatric profile” according to Laurent Gumbau, the prosecutor of the Republic of Tarascon, demanded his transfer.
“After a fairly long, quite complicated negotiation with the person concerned, he ended up surrendering and we were able to free the hostages. (…) Things ended well, but they could have been dangerous because of the weapon (made with metal picks, editor’s note) and the profile of the individual”explained Pierre-Edouard Colliex, the Bouches-du-Rhône police prefect, during a press briefing.
After five grueling hours, the three nurses, the doctor and the prison guard are well and will undergo medical examinations.
-On X, the Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin confirmed the end of the hostage taking, indicating that there was “no injuries.”
The Arles central prison, a prison created in 1991, is reserved for prisoners sentenced to sentences of more than 10 years of criminal imprisonment or presenting security risks. It was in this establishment that Corsican independence activist Yvan Colonna was detained, and it was there that he was fatally attacked by a fellow inmate in 2022.
This prison, closed for six years, between 2003 and 2009, after being flooded during a flood of the Rhône, had also hosted an inmate like Jean-Marc Rouillan, member of the far-left armed group Direct Action, of which he had was one of the co-founders.
