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TEHRAN, July 03 - Details emerged Monday of the daring prison escape of notorious French robber Redoine Faid, who used a helicopter in a breakout worthy of the Hollywood heist movies he is known to admire.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The escape by the convict dubbed the "Jailbreak King" by French media, having already broken out of prison in 2013, has raised questions about security at French jails.
An extensive manhunt involving some 2,900 police officers has been launched to track the 46-year-old movie buff, who has said he drew on movie baddies such as Tony Montana in "Scarface" for inspiration.
Faid was sprung from his prison in Reau, 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Paris, on Sunday by two heavily armed accomplices who used smoke bombs and angle grinders to break through doors and whisk him to a waiting helicopter.
The escape brings to at least five the number of jailbreaks in France in the past three decades involving helicopters.
Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told Europe 1 radio that she had sent inspectors to the prison "to see whether the security measures were defective so that we can rectify them".
She suggested that Faid had been left in the same prison for too long, giving the career criminal, who has said he found his "calling" at the age of 12, time to plot his escape.
Sunday's drama began at an airfield northeast of Paris where two men posing as flight school students hijacked a helicopter and ordered the instructor to fly them to Reau prison, stopping off en route to pick up a third accomplice.
On arrival at the high-security facility the pilot landed in the courtyard -- the only part of the prison not fitted with anti-helicopter nets.
Source: AFP
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