• An arrest warrant has been issued against a 43-year-old detainee, imprisoned in Valencia.

  • The individual made the trunk during an outing to the zoo, scheduled for Tuesday.

  • He had been sentenced in particular to 15 years in prison for acts of rape and had already escaped for the first time in 2017.

A 43-year-old prisoner escaped from Valence prison in Drôme on Tuesday.

He escaped during an outing to the zoo, we learned this Wednesday from the prosecution.

The man, along with three other prisoners, had been granted leave.

The activity was however supervised by four prison officers.

A search warrant has been issued against him to find him.

The individual with a well-laden criminal record is not at his first attempt.

He had already escaped from prison in 2017. Incarcerated since 2005, he had just served a fifteen-year prison sentence for acts of rape and extortion committed under the threat of a weapon.

This conviction was pronounced in 2008 by the Rhône Assize Court.

Release scheduled for May 2025

The detainee was then transferred in May 2021 to Valencia in order to carry out the rest of “multiple” convictions of different kinds: damage to property and persons, drug-related offenses, traffic offenses.

"His release was scheduled for May 31, 2025," said the Valencia prosecutor.

If his journey in prison was punctuated by “several incidents”, the prison administration had, nevertheless, noted “for several months” a change, “a positive dynamic in his behavior”.

According to the prosecution, the individual was undergoing training and had begun to compensate his victims.

He had also registered on a waiting list to work.

This is the reason why the administration and the sentence enforcement judge granted him this cultural outing permit.

“This permission was planned for the day in a zoo in order to prepare the individual for his future outing and to assess his reintegration capacities”, justifies the prosecution.

After their escape attempt, two detainees sent back to prison in Chambéry

Two inmates escape by sawing the bars of their cell in Périgueux

  • Miscellaneous facts

  • escape

  • Inmates

  • Prison

  • Valence

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes