The trial of Rédoine Faïd, following his escape from prison by helicopter in 2018, opened on Tuesday, September 5, 2023 before the Paris Assize Court.
The life of Rédoine Faïd is as breathless as the gangster films that hypnotize this multi-recidivist robber. This 51-year-old man is on trial before the Paris Assize Court with 11 accomplices. If he was initially to be released in 2046, this new trial for his spectacular escape from the prison of Réau (Seine-et-Marne) makes him incur life imprisonment.
Rédoine Faïd is one of the most famous criminals in France thanks to the success of two prison escapes. He has already been convicted in cases of armed robbery, robbery of armored vans, hostage taking and the murder of a police officer.
“Remove the cinema and you will have 50 percent less crime”, here is what Rédoine Faïd would have declared to Vanity Fair. And for good reason, this man has multiplied the cinematographic tributes during his misdeeds. He watched Michael Mann’s Heat more than a hundred times to analyze the van robbery scene in detail. In 2009, he even managed to ask the filmmaker a question during a conference. In 1997, Faïd and his accomplices wore hockey masks like McCauley’s band, played by Robert De Niro.
They copy the method of a bank robbery in Point Break to rob a French bank by being disguised as French presidents and quoting a line from the film during their operation. He also reportedly acted like he did in a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoirs Dogs during a jewelry store robbery.
For this new trial, the fourth, Rédoine Faïd seems to have gone beyond fiction. Or else, he was preparing a new passage for his project to see a film made about his life. Nicole Belloubet, Keeper of the Seals in 2018, described Faïd’s escape as “spectacular”. The detainee flew from the courtyard of the Réau prison thanks to a helicopter. An operation worthy of a Hollywood film.
Justice will try to understand the preparation and the realization of this smoothly conducted enterprise. Overflights of the penitentiary center by drones had been spotted by the deputy head of the prison in February 2018, but her management had not seen fit to respond to her request to install anti-intrusion ropes above the prison. main courtyard of the building. It is however this place which will then be the angle of attack of the escape enterprise of Rédoine Faïd.
During his imprisonment, FaÏd had an epistolary relationship with a certain Céline M. and his father-in-law was a helicopter pilot. The maniac manages to find out and targets the profile of this man, Stéphane Buy. Rachid Faïd, his brother, and Steeve Escrihuela, two defendants at the trial, went twice to the aerodrome where this pilot gave flying lessons. On July 1, 2018, Stéphane Buy thinks of making a course for these two men, but after a few minutes the situation takes a turn. At gunpoint, he was forced to divert his Alouette II to Réau prison.
On the way, the plane stops to pick up a third accomplice, Ishaac Herizi, nephew of Rédoine Faïd. At 11:18 a.m., the helicopter hovered one meter from the ground of Réau prison. The accomplices light a smoke bomb to block the view of the guards and surveillance cameras. In less than forty seconds, one of them cuts a front door using a grinder. He repeats his operation to overcome two iron gates and reaches the visiting room where Rédoine Faïd is waiting with her brother Brahim. The men then make the rainy journey without even running.
“I am neither a terrorist nor a criminal,” addresses Rédoine Faïd to the pilot dumbfounded by the turn of events. It is 11:28 a.m. when the Alouttet II leaves the perimeter of the Réau prison to the cheers of the prisoners who witness the scene. The guards, faced with the lack of visibility and the danger of seeing a helicopter crash into the prison, did not open fire.
Already in 2009, Redoine Faïd had dreams of escape. Arrested in 1998, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, before finally being released in 2009 for good behavior. When he was released in August, the robber agreed to speak to a journalist for three hours. Nine years later, a confession interview, broadcast Thursday October 11 in the second part of Envoyé Spécial, on France 2, has a premonitory air. Without taboo, he talks about his desire to escape and even explains having tried it. “You can imagine that for years I thought about escaping,” he explains to the journalist. “I didn’t prepare myself to go out, to be normal, to be cool, to have a bank account and all.”
Rédoine Faïd then claims, facing the camera, that he has already tried to escape. “Me, you don’t lock me up like that. I never thought I was going to do 10 and a half years, it’s not going well”. What stuck at the time? “There were leaks,” the robber simply states. In this same interview, the repeat offender says he wants a film to be made about his life.
Nine years after this confession, Redoine Faïd managed to escape, for the second time, and spent 93 days on the run. The prison authorities and the public authorities now have a shared concern: to do everything possible to ensure that Rédoine Faïd is the most closely monitored prisoner in France, after having been the most wanted fugitive in the country.
Rédoine Faïd now lives very alone. Alone in his cell, alone and isolated from all the other detainees for his sports and walking activities that he would like to agree to, at strict times. He is extremely guarded for each of his rare movements. He is “supervised by at least three agents and handcuffed for any movement outside his cell”, indicates Wilfrid Szala, local secretary of the SNP Force Ouvrière, to Figaro. The latter specifies to the newspaper that the officials of the penitentiary center have planned very regular searches. Visits to the visiting room are permitted, but closely supervised; they take place in a cabin with a separation window, says Le Figaro.
He has been placed in solitary confinement since 2013. This very strict regime is denounced by his lawyer Yves le Berquier who wishes to discuss the conditions of his client’s detention during this new trial.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018, after 93 days on the run, the most wanted man in France was found by the police, in Creil, in the Oise. In addition to Redoine Faïd, 6 other people, including his brother, two nephews and a wife, were also arrested. A very large-scale operation has been meticulously thought out and organized, so that it allows both to arrest the “hard core” of the Faïd gang, and to limit violence as much as possible.
The arrest, carried out by around fifty police officers from the research and intervention brigades (BRI) of Lille and Versailles, was a success: the 5 people arrested offered no resistance, not a shot was fired. drawn. Police found two handguns at the scene of the arrest. BFMTV broadcast a photo of the fugitive, obviously not quite awake yet, and another showing an impressive weapon found in the apartment, of the uzi type. Redoine Faïd let his beard grow.
The judicial police tracked Rédoine Faïd for many weeks, managing to find his trace before he could leave French territory. The police recovered numerous tangible elements and were able to establish that Rédoine Faïd had neither the money nor the logistical means necessary to organize an escape from French soil.
If the spectacular escape had been carefully prepared, the run was far from perfect. A week after their flight, the equipment is found by a hunter in the forest of Halatte (Oise): assault rifles, cartridges, bulletproof vests, walkie-talkies, grinder and Faïd’s t-shirt are found roughly concealed under a tarp. Several traces of DNA are found on these objects and prove the involvement of Rachid Faïd and Ishaac Herizi.
On July 24, 2018, investigators identified the fugitive in Sarcelles: Rédoine Faïd was with his brother in a car in a shopping center. They had passed without stopping at a police checkpoint. The two men then quickly abandoned their vehicle, before the gendarmes stopped them. Traces of DNA had been discovered as well as many other clues. The police had got their hands on dummy explosives, which suggested a new robbery project.
An anonymous report makes it possible to reduce the perimeter around the family circle in the town of Creil: an individual in a burqa with a masculine silhouette challenges this person. The location becomes clearer and the hideouts multiply. On October 3, 2018, BRI and Raid teams entered an apartment of a relative of the Faïds. Rédoine, Rachid and Ishaac are arrested.
