The permission for his release has sparked controversy. Ouaihid Ben Faïza, who is being held in the anti-organized crime unit (QLCO) at Vendin-le-Vieil prison (Pas-de-Calais), returned to his cell this Monday evening at around 9 pm, as planned, according to the Ministry of Justice.
“He respected the timetable of his permission to leave,” added the ministry, which said it had no “information to suggest” there had been any incident.
Considered extremely dangerous, the inmate left the high-security prison this morning at 07.40 as part of his leave to travel home to the Lyon region, with his wife.
The “employer” leave issued by the sentencing judge caused disapproval in some prison unions.
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“You just need common sense,” Thomas Vaugrand, secretary general of the UFAP UNSA Justice union in Hauts-de-France, said Monday from a high-security prison. “We said we had to keep them away from the outside world (…) and today we let them go into the wild, alone,” he added.
The Béthune Prosecutor’s Office itself had issued an unfavorable opinion regarding granting this permit to prisoners who could be released in 2029.
A breakout in 2014
Even without an escort, Ouaihid Ben Faïza was closely followed by the National Research and Support Division (DNRA), according to our information. This Monday, he departed via TGV from Lille (North) for an interview with a potential employer near Lyon (Rhône).
In 2014, while imprisoned in Villepinte prison (Seine-Saint-Denis), the inmate escaped with the support of armed commandos while on his way to hospital.
On Sunday, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said he wanted an overhaul of the rules applying sentences for convicts convicted of organized crime. “This highly structured and dangerous profile requires a different set of laws and very special vigilance,” the Justice Minister told X.
