French special forces have managed to peacefully end a hostage situation in a high-security prison that lasted several hours.
A prisoner attacked two guards at the Conde-sur-Sarthe prison in Normandy on Tuesday morning, injuring one guard's eye, according to the Ministry of Justice in Paris. The inmate then took them both hostage.
Police negotiators persuaded the man to surrender after an almost four-hour-long stand-off. Both guards were released and given psychological support, while the inmate was given medical care.
According to daily newspaper Le Parisien, the prisoner was a 33-year-old man sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual and violent offences, for which he was nicknamed the "Monster of Colombes," after the Parisian suburb where he carried out his attacks.
There in 2013, the prisoner attacked two women within half an hour beating one so badly she remained disabled for life, and beating then raping the other. Le Parisien also reported that the prisoner had previously attacked two guards in another prison in 2018.
The Conde-sur-Sarthe maximum security prison is no stranger to hostage situations, seeing two in 2019 alone. While one was not serious, the other resulted in the death of a prison visitor. At the time the Ministry of Justice promised the prison guards better equipment following staff protests to demand safer working conditions.
