Access after "under a hundred hours"!

Investigations with "high pressure"!

"Sightseekers", "Special Forces", "Air Support"!

The efforts of the police at the press conference on Tuesday to make the success of the search shine all the brighter after a convicted murderer in Bavaria was able to just jump out of a window and make his way to France is palpable.

Of course, a thorough investigation will be carried out into why Rachid C. was able to flee at all, assures the Vice President of the Oberpfalz Police Headquarters, Thomas Schöniger.

Only at the moment, given the feverish search for C., one has not yet got around to it.

Karen Truscheit

Editor in the “Germany and the World” department.

  • Follow I follow

The search began after his lawyer stepped out of the lawyer's room at the Regensburg district court shortly after 2 p.m. on Thursday and told the prison officer standing guard outside the door that his client had just jumped out of the window.

Rachid C., 40 years old, Algerian, and an accomplice robbed a lottery shop in 2011 and killed the 76-year-old owner.

He was later sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.

He was now in court in Regensburg for resisting law enforcement officials in a prison.

When he was picked up from prison in the morning, he was handcuffed but not anklecuffed, as Schöniger reports.

In the room is whether C. may have faked an injury and therefore did not have to wear the ankle bracelet.

According to the order of the presiding judge, he was then able to remove his handcuffs in the courtroom.

"At Extreme Speed"

Shortly before the plea he withdrew to talk to his defense lawyer, two correctional officers took him and the lawyer to the lawyer's room on the ground floor at around 2 p.m. and left the two there alone.

Law enforcement officials are not allowed to have such conversations.

However, the two officers saw "that the room has a window".

One then stood guard in front of the door, the other set out to secure the window in front of the building.

Rachid C. used this time to "jump out of the window and start sprinting".

And "at extreme speed".

The officer notified by the lawyer jumped in immediately to start the pursuit – while the second officer was unsuspectingly on his way out.

But C. had already disappeared.

The large-scale manhunt began, emergency services were brought together, all police officers received a picture of the fugitive on their cell phones, the State Criminal Police Office informed nationwide, a European arrest warrant was issued: "Every police officer in Bavaria, Germany and beyond was on the lookout."

Mantrailer dogs were still able to follow his tracks close to the train station, and later information came from the public.

He was said to be seen often: on Saturday afternoon, for example, in an ICE train in Hanover.

Federal police stopped the train, but Rachid C. was not on it.

According to Schöniger, there were indications early on that Rachid C. might have fled to France.

"Relatives live there." There was a close exchange with French investigators.

C.'s "contact addresses" in Germany and abroad were checked.

The Bavarian investigators shared their results with French target investigators “in real time” – and vice versa.

Finally, on Sunday, "contact persons from Rachid C." could be located on a motorway in Baden-Württemberg, as police director Michael Danninger adds.

Special units of the police there were therefore "introduced to them".

The "operational measures" - presumably observations - were handed over to French special forces at the border crossing to France.

Rachid C., who had changed his appearance while fleeing, was arrested

By then he had fled around 470 kilometers from Regensburg, around five and a half hours by car.

The police had previously seen him in Strasbourg in the car of one of his sisters.

According to the police, there are indications that it was “a planned escape”.

It will now be determined whether C., who was arrested without resistance, had one or more helpers.

According to Danninger, the escape was not punishable for him, but the helpers could be accused of evading criminal prosecution.

The escape route will be analyzed and it will be checked whether C. has committed criminal offenses such as bodily harm or property damage.

At the moment Rachid C. is still in France.

"The transfer to Germany is in progress."