Overview
- The former guard, 25, told a judge on Tuesday she was forced to follow Ilyas Kherbouch, describing beatings and knife threats and saying she feigned pregnancy to shield herself.
- Kherbouch, known as "Ganito," told his lawyer the flight were the ten best days of his life and said he wanted to experience freedom after brief time outside custody since age 14.
- The escape began March 7 when accomplices posed as police with a forged court paper, and the pair moved through Belgium and the Netherlands to Germany before returning to France.
- The BRI arrested both in Canet-en-Roussillon on March 20, Kherbouch’s 21st birthday, after stops traced through Amsterdam, Delft, Strasbourg and Lyon.
- Both are under formal investigation and jailed for organized escape and corruption of a public official, as prosecutors probe other helpers, including a 24-year-old who surrendered in Metz after two arrests on March 8, and question the route as "somewhat surprising."