By Gabriel Stargardter
PARIS (Reuters) – French anti-terrorism prosecutors will no longer handle the investigation into 30 people suspected of involvement in a spate of prison attacks, saying on Friday their alleged actions were “within the framework of major organised crime”.
Over five separate nights in April, at least 10 French prisons were attacked. Automatic weapons were fired at jails, cars were torched in prison car parks and officers were intimidated in their homes.
Despite government ministers saying the attacks were likely sparked by a push to crack down on gangsters running their drug empires from behind bars, the French national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office (PNAT) quickly took charge of the probe.
However, on Friday, the PNAT said: “It does not appear that these coordinated actions stem from a terrorist enterprise … No radical violent ideology, no foreign interference, both leads that were deeply investigated, could be found.”
The PNAT said 30 people had been arrested for alleged involvement in the attacks. Seven were already serving time in jail and four were minors. Seven have subsequently been released, it said.
The PNAT said investigators had identified the alleged creator of the “DDPF,” or “French prisoners’ rights,” group on Telegram, which it said was used to defend the attacks and rail against conditions for those behind bars. It said the person was a convicted inmate, awaiting trial in a drug gang trial, with alleged links to Marseille’s powerful and fast-expanding DZ Mafia gang.
The DDPF tag was daubed across many of the prisons attacked, and the PNAT alleged the DDPF Telegram group was used to order the hits, tendering out the work to small-time criminals to carry them out in a fashion commonly used by French gangs.
Given the alleged links to organised crime, the PNAT said it was handing the probe over to the JUNALCO organised crime office at the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The prison attacks have underlined France’s growing problems with organised crime. This week, lawmakers approved a sweeping counter-narcotics law to equip the state with tougher tools to fight a sharp rise in drug crime following a record-breaking surge of South American cocaine into Europe.
The new law will create a national prosecutor’s office for organised crime, and isolate dangerous kingpins in prisons, among other measures.
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Editing by William Maclean)
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