The man who took five people hostage on Friday at Arles prison, in Bouches-du-Rhône, is no longer facing the police but is now facing the doctors. The detainee’s custody was in fact interrupted on Saturday, after a psychiatric expert concluded that his hospitalization in a psychiatric unit was necessary.
The psychiatrist expert concluded “that there was a decompensation of personality disorders having the effect of making him dangerous for himself or others” and recommended “constrained hospitalization in a specialized environment”, indicated the public prosecutor of Tarascon, Laurent Gumbau.
A fuzzy mobile
This 37-year-old Guyanese national took four medical staff and a prison guard hostage for five hours on Friday, in the care unit of the Arles central prison where he sequestered them under threat of a homemade weapon , before surrendering without causing any injuries. The man seemed to have the “motive” to change establishment, but “there was no specific, written request, as inmates can do with the prison administration,” the Tarascon prosecutor emphasized on Friday. .
The custody of this inmate, who was serving an eighteen-year prison sentence at Arles central prison for rape at gunpoint, was lifted at 6:30 p.m., the magistrate said, “and full admission without consent implemented […] at the specialized hospital center of Montfavet” in Vaucluse. “He could ultimately be taken care of at the beginning of next week within the specially designed hospital unit (UHSA) in Marseille,” he added. As soon as his health condition “is sufficiently stabilized, he will be interviewed again as part of a resumption of the police custody measure”.
A “very dangerous” inmate
Several sources highlighted on Friday the psychiatric disorders of the detainee, described as “unstable”, without any pathology being formally established. The Bouches-du-Rhône police prefect, Pierre-Edouard Colliex, described this man, known “for acts of violence, particularly in detention”, as “very dangerous”, welcoming an outcome “without the use of force” , at the end of a “fairly long and fairly complicated negotiation”.
