WW2 Espionage Using Hidden Microphones Against Senior POW Officers in Comfy Mansion

Bugged mansion where Senior German PoW Officers unwittingly gave away secrets during WW2

She has built a career out of making us laugh, but Absolutely Fabulous star Helen Lederer has a serious story to tell too.

The actress and comedian, 70, had always believed that her grandfather - who fled to Britain from Czechoslovakia as a Jewish refugee before the Second World War began - had only served as a conscript in the Home Guard.

It was only decades later, when she appeared in a documentary for Channel 5, that she discovered his part in an operation that helped turn the tide of the Second World War.

For Arnost Lederer had key roles at Trent Park - a mansion in North London where hundreds of captured German generals and senior officers were allowed to live in the lap of luxury.

Made to feel comfortable, they revealed Nazi military secrets and Holocaust war crimes in conversations that were being recorded by dozens of hidden microphones.

Arnost is believed to have been both a 'secret listener' and a so-called 'stool pigeon' - the name for the fluent German speakers who mixed with the high-status captives in an effort to get them to open up. 

Between 1939 and 1945, more than 10,000 German and Italian prisoners - including dozens of generals and senior officers - passed through Trent Park and two other listening centres. 

At the Imperial War Museum earlier this month, Helen delivered a moving talk on both her grandfather's wartime role and the plight of relatives who were murdered in Nazi death camps. 

Absolutely Fabulous star Helen Lederer had always believed that her grandfather only served in the Home Guard after fleeing the clutches of the Nazis and settling in Britain. But Arnost Lederer (right) in fact had a key role at Trent Park, the mansion in North London where Nazi generals were listened to without their knowledge

The actress is a trustee for a museum that is set to open at Trent Park next year and is also working on an upcoming TV drama inspired by her grandfather's story.

Helen was barely five when Arnost passed away in 1959, but fondly remembers her grandfather - the 'head of the family' - as 'affable, strong, friendly, and warm'.

A family photo shows Helen as a toddler looking nervously across the dinner table at the smartly-dressed Arnost. 

Even then, more than a decade after Nazi Germany's defeat, he hadn't said a word to his family about his role at Trent Park - in large part because he had signed the Official Secrets Act and was still bound by it.

Helen, who portrayed Catriona in hit comedy Absolutely Fabulous after making her name as a comedian in the 1980s, only found out the extent of his heroics when she appeared in TV show War Hero in my Family in 2012. 

Arnost had come to England as a refugee in 1938, after fleeing his home in the Sudetenland - the region of what was then Czechoslovakia that was invaded by Germany.

The businessman got out with his wife and children, including Helen's father - but many other members of the Lederer family were not so lucky.

Channel 5 viewers also saw Helen go to Auschwitz, where she learned that many of her relatives had perished there. 

Senior German captives at Trent Park. Back row from left to right: General Dietrich von Choltitz, Oberst Gerhard Wilck, General Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, Generalmajor Knut Eberding, Oberst Hermann Eberhard Wildermuth. Front row from left to right: General Rüdiger von Heyking, General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, General Wilhelm Daser

Once owned by the aristocratic Sassoon family, Trent Park, near Enfield in north London, had been requisitioned by the government for its special purpose

A secret listener using his equipment. At Trent Park, microphones were hidden in every conceivable spot 

Remarkably, there was a ray of light in the horror - her father's first cousin had survived Auschwitz and was still alive. 

Helen made an emotional trip to Prague to meet Frantisek Lederer, who was then in his 80s.  

Being fluent in both Czech and German, Arnost - who settled with his family near Hampstead Heath - was useful to the British war effort and so was recruited into top secret War Office department MI9.

Each morning, he would leave home wearing his Home Guard uniform under the pretence that he was patrolling Hampstead - but in reality he was going to Trent Park.

Helen told MailOnline: 'The beauty of being given the documentary and being given that information is that you end up at least going, "well he did something. Because we didn't know he did anything. 

'You could say they got out, that's great they got out, people with connections and luck got out. 

'But then you go, "what about the guilt?". His family didn't.'

She added: 'The main thing is the positivity of what he did do, and the positivity of what the Lederers did going forward. 

'It is about what you do have and why you should make your life count. It does give you that ethos inside when you know what they went through.

'You have to move on and just go, "okay, this is now".' 

Incredibly, while Arnost was going to Trent Park, Helen's mother was working at Bletchley Park - the renowned codebreaking centre where a team led by Alan Turing cracked the Enigma code.   

In 1944, Arnost was thanked for his wartime efforts by none other than the director of military intelligence Sir John Sinclair, who would later serve as the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in the 1950s. 

He told him in a letter: 'The results of interrogation in the U.K. have proved valuable, not only to the War Office, but also to the Forces in the Field.

'Your keenness and self-sacrifice in volunteering to assist in this work, and the efficiency shown in its execution, have materially contributed to these satisfactory results.'

Arnost, who fought on the side of Germany ally Austria-Hungary in the First World War, went on to count the UK Defence Medal - which was given to members of the Home Guard and other non-operational service - among his collection of awards.

Growing up, Helen was only vaguely aware that there was deep tragedy in the family, but did not know any details.

'It is weird about how these things can be buried in family folklore. I don't think we talked about it,' she said. 

'We knew if we talked to my grandmother about it, she went very quiet and became very sad. 

'So we thought, "why would you go there?". 

'We just thought there's something going on but it's not spoken about. You get used to that vibe, because why would you want to make your grandmother sad?'

Once owned by the aristocratic Sassoon family, Trent Park, near Enfield in north London, had been requisitioned by the government for its special purpose.

Until 1942, the house was used as an interrogation centre for German and Italian prisoners of war.

But its purpose then shifted to one involving just senior PoWs - generals and senior officers.  

The leader of the operation - officially called the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) - was Thomas Joseph Kendrick, who until taking on his new role had been a key intelligence agent.

Until 1942, the house was used as an interrogation centre for German and Italian prisoners of war

As historian Helen Fry recounted in her 2019 book The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II, hundreds of recording technicians, stenographers, German-speaking interpreters and transcribers were involved.

But central to the ruse were fake prisoners called 'stool pigeons', who were tasked with mixing with the captives to encourage conversations.

Besides Arnost Lederer, another undercover prisoner was the father of singer and actress Olivia Newton-John.

Speaking to MailOnline, Ms Fry said: 'The significance of Trent Park is quite simply, without it and without Bletchley Park we could have lost the war.'

She added: 'Trent Park was full by D-Day. We are talking about 59 German generals in one house. 

'And then 40 senior German officers just below the rank of General. 

'The other side of that is treating them to a life of relative luxury seems outrageous, but it was all designed to get them to relax.

'We treated them like military gentlemen, and they were relaxed. They gave us stuff we could never have got in interrogation.

'Helen's family was one of many who had no idea that their contribution to the war was immeasurable.'

Hidden anywhere they wouldn't be spotted were microphones. They were in the light fittings, fireplaces, under floorboards and even hung in trees in the grounds.

It meant that everything that was said was being secretly listened to.

On arrival at Trent Park, generals and senior officers were greeted by a one-legged aristocrat who called himself Lord Aberfeldy and claimed he was their welfare officer.

In fact, Aberfeldy was the cover name of intelligence officer Ian Munroe, who embraced his acting role with glee.

Munroe's role was to make the generals feel at home, including by buying them treats.

There were also lunch trips out, first to Simpson's on the Strand and then - after Churchill had those dinners stopped - at the Ritz.

Information they collected from the PoWs included valuable intelligence on the programme that made the V1 and V2 rockets; troop positions; battle plans; U-boat bases and new aircraft technology.

Also revealed in conversations was evidence of Holocaust war crimes.

One general speaking 1943 about the number of Jews killed said: 'It must be three million by now.'

Another, General Dietrich von Choltitz, confessed to a colleague: 'The gravest task I ever undertook, and I did at the time strictly, was the liquidation of the Jews.'

Von Choltitz had been in command of Paris in 1944 as the Allied armies drew closer. 

He defied an order from Hitler to destroy the city in the face of certain defeat.

A third talked of witnessing a massacre of 300 Jews in Latvia, telling how 'children as young as three were despatched with a shot to the neck and then thrown into a pit.'

The role of Trent Park remained largely unknown until transcripts of generals' conversations emerged in the early 2000s.

There are still classified files that could contain more revelations, but the original recordings are all believed to have been lost. 

The aim of the new museum is to 'to open one of London's grandest houses to the public and reveal the incredible story of the Secret Listeners that has remained hidden in the house for over 70 years', according to its website.

After the war, Arnost continued to run his furniture business. He passed away in 1959.

Helen released her memoir, Not That I'm Bitter, last year.  

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14430149/Ab-Fab-star-Helen-Lederer-reveals-amazing-family-link-bugged-WWII-mansion-Nazis-PoWs-unwittingly-gave-away-secrets-spoke-war-crimes.html

Analysis of Jihadist Criminality under International Law

Jihadist criminality and law-enforcement

Navigating Hamas barbarism needs knowledge of what the law allows. And Israel's war is unequivocally within its rights.

By Prof. Louis Rene Beres

Immediately following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, a reconfiguration of jihadi groups began to take shape. In ways not yet fully understood, this complex reconfiguration is being accelerated by Israel-Hamas hostage release agreements. But whatever the precise forms of this worrisome reconfiguration, an authoritative distinction will continue to distinguish between terror criminality and law-based counter-terrorism. In essence, this unchanging distinction will concern the universal jihadi embrace of “criminal intent” or mens rea.

Regarding Israel’s inherent right to survival and self-defense, pertinent law is fully clarifying and exculpatory. While the harms inflicted by Israeli counter-terrorism operations are collateral to international law-enforcement, the harms perpetrated on Israeli civilian hostages by Hamas and kindred jihadists are invariably the product of intentional law violation. Inter alia, it was improper for the International Criminal Court to issue coinciding arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and leaders of Hamas. On its face, this ICC-declared symmetry was political and contrived. It was not in any way jurisprudential.

In its current law-enforcing war against jihadist terror – whether in Gaza, Lebanon, Judea/Samar or elsewhere - Israel is acting on behalf of all nation-states. While this assessment has been difficult to acknowledge by observers who see only the most tangible effects of Israeli military counter-terrorism, it is entirely supported by authoritative legal standards and by long-established correlative principles of “mutual aid.” By this immutable principle (one known correctly as an instance of “jus cogens” or “compelling law”), each state is obligated to assist other states that are imperiled by aggression and/or terror-violence. Most important in explaining this civilizational obligation were scholars Emmerich de Vattel (The Law of Nations, 1758) and William Blackstone (Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769). Among other things, these two works of classical jurisprudence shaped the legal foundations of Israel’s principal ally, the United States.

There are additional and interrelated details specifically concerning Israel and Hamas. The “Islamic Resistance Movement” crimes of October 7, 2023 – indiscriminate murder, rape and hostage-taking – represent “Nuremberg-level” violations of humanitarian international law. Under “peremptory” or “jus cogens” international rules, all states – not just Israel – have both a codified and customary obligation to punish the terror-criminals. An integral part of Nuremberg Tribunal Principles (especially Principle 1), this obligation stipulates “No crime without a punishment,” or Nullun crimen sine poena.

Plainly, there would have been no Gaza War and no Palestinian Arab casualties if Hamas had not launched its barbarous criminal assault against Israelis, some of whom were under five years old, raped (male and female) and ceremoniously burned alive. For still enthusiastic Hamas supporters, whether in American universities or Palestinian Authority cities, it is high time to understand that Hamas actions of October 7, 2023 had nothing to do with expectations of sovereignty, self-determination or statehood. Instead, they were expressions of lasciviously primal urgings. An elucidating example would be the viscerally-driven boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

There is more. Among the jurisprudentially-illiterate charges leveled against Israel in its necessary Gaza War operations is “disproportionality.” But what exactly does this charge really mean? More precisely, what are the identifiable legal requirements of “proportionality” specified under humanitarian international law?

To answer correctly, proportionality has nothing to do with symmetrical or equivalent harms. The law-based obligations of “proportional combat” are contained in rules governing the resort to armed conflict (“justice of war”) and the operational conduct of hostilities (“justice in war.”) In the former, proportionality concerns various existential rights of national self-defense and survival. In the latter, proportionality concerns the manner in which a particular belligerency is being carried out.

Proportionality derives from the more basic legal principle that the belligerent rights of insurgent groups and nation-states always have specific limitations. The manipulative declaration that Hamas is entitled to fight “by any means necessary” directly contravenes Hague Convention No. IV (1907), Annex to the Convention, Section II (Hostilities), Art. 22: "The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.” Unlike Israel, which expressly regrets the collateral damage of its obligatory self-defense war in Gaza, Hamas rocket fire and terror attacks are the product of relentlessly criminal intent.

For informed legal judgments on what happens in the Gaza War, relevant principles, codifications and customs must be suitably identified and explained. Under humanitarian international law, every belligerent's resort to armed force remains limited to what is “necessary” to meet allowable military objectives. The related notion of "military necessity" is defined as follows: "Only that degree and kind of force, not otherwise prohibited by the law of armed conflict, required for the partial or complete submission of the enemy with a minimum expenditure of time, life, and physical resources may be applied."[1]

Observers still speak narrowly of “international” law, but actual belligerents include not only states, but also terrorist armed forces. This means that even where an insurgency is presumptively lawful – that is, where it seemingly meets the settled criteria of “just cause” – it must still satisfy all corollary expectations of “just means.” Even if Hamas and its sister terror groups would have a presumptive right to fight against an alleged Israeli “occupation,” that fight would still need to respect long-established limitations of “distinction,” “proportionality” and “military necessity.” Deliberately firing rockets into Israeli civilian areas and intentionally placing military assets amid civilian populations always represents a “perfidious” crime of war. And any taking of civilian hostages, whatever the alleged cause, represents unpardonable criminality.

Still, regarding Israel’s incontestable rights of self-defense, manipulations and misunderstandings continue. If a “common-sense” definition of proportionality was ever deemed binding, there could be no legitimate defense of America's "disproportionate" attacks on European and Japanese cities during World War II. By that standard, Dresden, Cologne, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would represent the documented nadir of inhumane and lawless belligerency. Expressed differently, these US attack histories would reveal the modern world's manifestly worst violations of humanitarian international law.

Perfidy represents a much greater wrongdoing than simple immorality or visceral cowardice. It expresses a starkly delineated and punishable crime. It is identified as a "grave breach" at Article 147 of Geneva Convention IV.

Deception can be lawful in armed conflict, but The Hague Regulations disallow any placement of military assets or personnel in populated civilian areas. Related prohibitions of perfidy can be found at Protocol I of 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. These rules are also binding on the basis of customary international law, a principal jurisprudential source identified at Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.

All combatants, including Palestinian Arab insurgents supposedly fighting for "self-determination," are bound by the law of war. This rudimentary requirement is found at Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. It cannot be suspended or abrogated. Israel, too, is bound by the law of war, but Gaza War actions that kill and injure Palestinian Are civilians are without mens rea. In law, all harms resulting from these actions become the responsibility of the perfidious belligerent. This means both Hamas terror-criminals who cower behind false narratives and “human shields” and the terror-supporting Islamic Republic of Iran.

There are additional facts. The alleged Hamas goal of Palestinian Arab “self-determination” is founded upon an intended crime – that is, the total “removal” of the Jewish State by attrition and annihilation. This genocidal orientation has its origins in the PLO's "Phased Plan" of June 9, 1974. In its 12th Session, the PLO's highest deliberative body, the Palestinian National Council, reiterated the terror-organization’s aim "to achieve their rights to return, and to self-determination on the whole of their homeland."

In its 1974 plan, a proposed sequence of Palestinian Arab violence was unambiguously identified: FIRST, "to establish a combatant national authority over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated" (Art. 2); SECOND, "to use that territory to continue the fight against Israel" (Art. 4); and THIRD, "to start a Pan-Arab War to complete the liberation of the all-Palestinian territory” (Art. 8). Ironically, this was (and remains) the annihilationist plan of a more mainstream Palestinian Arab terror group than Hamas, an organization that Hamas has always considered too moderate.

For Israel, the existential threat is no longer from a “Pan-Arab War.” At some still-ambiguous point, Hamas or kindred jihadists (plausibly with Iranian support) could launch assorted mega-terror attacks on Israel. Such potentially perfidious aggressions, unprecedented and in cooperation with allied non-Palestinian Arab jihadists, could include chemical, biological or radiological (radiation-dispersal) weapons.

Readily foreseeable perils could also include a non-nuclear terrorist attack on the Israeli reactor at Dimona. There exists a documented history of enemy assaults against this Israeli plutonium-production facility, both by a state (Iraq) in 1991 and by a Palestinian Arab terror group (Hamas) in 2014. Though neither attack was successful, variously precedents were established.

International law is not a suicide pact. Even amid long-enduring world-system anarchy, such law offers a binding body of rules and procedures that permits a beleaguered state to express an "inherent right of self-defense." But when Hamas celebrates the explosive "martyrdom" of jihadi-manipulated Palestinian Arab civilians and when Palestinian Arab leaders seek "redemption" (i.e., presumed power over death) through the mass-murder of "Jews,” the wrongdoers have no supportable claims to immunity from punishment. Moreover, Hamas celebrations of “martyrdom” underscore the two-sided nature of Palestinian Arab terror/sacrifice - that is, the primal sacrifice of "The Jew" (not the “Zionist”) and the reciprocal sacrifice of "The Islamist Martyr." Significantly, such murderous reasoning is explicitly codified within the Charter of Hamas as a "religious problem."

Under international law, terrorists are considered hostes humani generis or "common enemies of humankind." Among other things, this category of criminals invites punishment wherever the wrongdoers can be found. Concerning their required arrest and prosecution, jurisdiction is “universal.”

There is an extra-legal but still important observation concerning Hamas allegations of Israeli "disproportionality." To wit, many Palestinian Arab commanders who control terror-mayhem against Israel unheroically seek shelter in safe towns and cities outside of Gaza. Theatrical rhetoric notwithstanding, these self-declared commanders are never eager to become "martyrs" themselves. Why? This is a question that every impacted Palestinian Arab should now be asking.

What next? In law, all law, truth is exculpatory. Regarding the unresolved Gaza War, pertinent truth is unambiguous. Once again, Israel is waging a necessary war against a determinedly exterminatory foe, this time a jihadist terrorist organization that seeks annihilation for Israel, eternality for its “martyrs” and safety for its openly criminal leaders. In assessing such bitter circumstances, the “international community” should finally take seriously the revealing truth of Hamas’ perfidy and the verifiable falsehoods of Israeli “disproportionality.”

In the end, Hamas and its wider Palestinian Arab populations believe that they are fighting a “just war” and are entitled to employ “any means necessary.” Jurisprudentially, however, rights can never stem from wrongs. Under no circumstances can there be any law-based justifications for terror-violence.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), forerunner of Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and the Palestine Authority (PA) was formed in 1964. This formation took place three years before there were any "Israeli Occupied Territories." So what exactly were the Palestinian Arabs trying to "liberate”?

The answer is obvious, displays criminal intent and has never changed. It is everything “From the River to the Sea.”

Louis René Beres, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue, was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). A frequent contributor to several major law and strategy journals in the United States, Europe and Israel, he is the author of twelve books and many monographs dealing with war, terrorism and jurisprudence. Professor Beres is a seven-times contributor to Oxford University Press Annual Yearbook on International Law and Jurisprudence and a member of the Oxford editorial advisory board for the Yearbook. An early recipient of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist’s Rabinowitch Prize, Dr. Louis René Beres was born in Zürich at the end of World War II.

[1] See United States, Department of the Navy, jointly with Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; and Department of Transportation, U.S. Coast Guard, The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, NWP 1-14M, Norfolk, Virginia, October 1995, p. 5-1.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/404474

Mohammed The Fly Captured

The French Muslim fugitive known as 'The Fly', who was freed in a deadly prison van ambush, fled to Romania for plastic surgery, and was planning to start a new life in Colombia when he was finally caught by police, officials have revealed.

Mohamed Amra was labelled France's 'public enemy number one' after two guards were shot dead by masked gunmen during the military-style ambush last May. The drug kingpin's escape sparked an international manhunt.

He fled the country and disguised himself by dying his hair red and wearing glasses, but police were able to identify and arrest him in a sting near a shopping centre in Bucharest on Saturday.

The 30-year-old's identity was confirmed by facial recognition and the comparison of fingerprints, the Paris prosecutor said following the joint operation with the Romanian authorities. 

Amra grinned as he was hauled to and from court in Bucharest by heavily armed guards yesterday, and even brazenly joked with journalists that he was 'on holiday' in Romania rather than on the run. 

Dominique Garcia, the father of one of the two prison officers who was killed during Amra's escape, responded to the footage by slamming the criminal's 'full of himself' attitude.

Arnaud Garcia's father told RMC that Amra's arrest is 'a relief' and that he was 'happy' that 'no one was hurt on the police side' as they were in the bloody prison convoy attack, adding: 'Amra is not human.'

Romanian Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu told France 2 last night that Amra had 'wanted to have cosmetic surgery' in Romania, and intended to 'leave the country for Colombia.'

Amra, nicknamed 'La Mouche' (The Fly), was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy before the bloodbath unfolded

Mohamed Amra grinned as he was hauled to and from court in Bucharest by heavily armed guards today

The 30-year-old disguised himself by dying his hair red and wearing glasses, but police were able to identify and arrest him in a sting near a shopping centre

Amra gets out of a van as policemen escort him to the court of appeal in Bucharest yesterday

French police said today that they have arrested some two dozen suspects in connection with the notorious gangster's escape last year.

The terrifying attack at a motorway toll station in north-west France sparked a huge manhunt which saw several hundred police, including France's elite anti-terror unit, search for the suspected drug kingpin and his accomplices.

Dramatic footage showed the chilling moment the prison van was rammed by a black SUV before gunmen, in hoods and balaclavas, who appeared and opened fire with military-grade weapons.

The gunmen fled with prisoner Amra, who also goes by aliases such as Yanis, Momo and Schtroumpf (The Smurf). During the hunt to locate the assailants, they were described as 'armed and very dangerous'.

After nine months on the run, Amra was eventually arrested on the orders of the investigating judges in Bucharest over the weekend.

His detention appears to have sparked a series of arrests, including of ten individuals in raids in France this morning and several others abroad.

A man was reportedly arrested in Spain on Saturday while raids are also said to have taken place in Morocco, where two men were arrested, and in Thailand , where a suspected accomplice of Amra was taken into custody.

'In total, there are 24 police custody cases in progress,' the Paris public prosecutor's office reportedly noted. 

A graphic detailing how the deadly attack unfolded at a toll station in north-west France

Footage also shows gunmen at the scene, filmed from a passing coach, where two guards were shot dead 

The daylight attack on the high security prison van took place as the convoy was two-thirds of the way through a 34-mile journey from Rouen in Normandy, transporting Amra back to jail in the town of Évreux after a court hearing.

Amra, who allegedly ordered a gangland execution two years ago, had appeared before an investigating magistrate in the morning.

As the convoy paused at Incarville tollbooth on the A154 motorway near Val-de-Reuil, the SUV drove into the lead van, effectively blocking it.

Masked men in black emerged from two other cars, brandishing weapons, believed to be pump action rifles and automatic machine guns. 

They opened fire with armed officers inside the prison vans firing back. One of the attackers is believed to have been injured in the shoot-out.

The coordinated attack was over in five minutes, having been played out in front of motorists, including a coach whose passengers took mobile phone videos.

Amra and the gang escaped in two cars, an Audi A5 and a BMW 5 series, which were later found abandoned and burnt out.

French authorities were seen towing away a burnt-out vehicle used in the inmate's escape on May 14

Forensic officer at work at the site of a ramming attack which took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France last year

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau has said that Amra had connections with Marseille's organised crime syndicates and headed a drug trafficking network. 

He has also reportedly been linked to organised crime and drug trafficking as well as to kidnapping and murder.

Amra was convicted of a series of aggravated thefts last week and given an 18-month sentence after using a gun to rob supermarkets in Évreux in 2019.

He has a total of 13 convictions and was also being held in connection with an attempted murder in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, and the execution of a man in Marseille in June 2022.

Amra is nicknamed 'The Fly' because of his multiple convictions and his involvement in a range of crimes, with a source saying: 'He's everywhere, like an annoying fly.' 

French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said: 'These are people for whom life counts for nothing.'

French prison guards wear bullet proof vests and have handguns when transporting prisoners. 

They do not have to stop or pay at toll stations but they are often slowed by traffic, making them vulnerable to attacks.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14429687/Fugitive-Fly-prison-van-ambush-Romania-cosmetic-surgery-dyed-hair-Colombia.html