Toulouse: on the run since July 2019, Redouane Ikil makes a surprise return to … Agen
Sentenced for two violent extortions in post offices in Toulouse in 2012 and 2013, Redouane Ikil, who had disappeared before being imprisoned in Algeria, went to Agen on Thursday. He was placed in criminal detention for 18 years of imprisonment.
Clearly, Redouane Ikil is never where you expect him to be. This former director of the La Poste office in Bellefontaine, in Toulouse, has lived on the run since July 5, 2019. He had chosen to disappear a few hours before his conviction by the Tarn Assize Court to 18 years’ imprisonment for two violent extortions committed in 2012 and 2013 in Toulouse.
Then he was arrested in Oran, Algeria, in February 2020 and imprisoned. Many still thought he was in prison, but he reappeared on Thursday in France. He presented himself at the Agen police station. He had informed the public prosecutor’s office of the Agen Court of Appeal of his intentions a few days ago. A magistrate served him on Thursday afternoon with his execution of the sentence and he was placed in prison in the Agen remand center.
He should quickly join the Fresnes assessment center, in the Paris region, then be placed in an establishment for punishment. He has already spent more than three years in pre-trial detention. Will he get the months in prison spent in Algeria also counted?
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End of the run for Redouane Ikil: the former director of post offices in Toulouse convicted of robbery went to Agen
This man has always claimed his innocence in two violent extortions that traumatized two La Poste employees taken hostage in March 2012 in Bellefontaine and May 2013 in Saint-Cyprien. Justice accused him of having informed the robbers. He had convinced the jurors of the Assize Court of Haute-Garonne of his innocence in June 2017, not those gathered in Albi two years later.
How did he get out of Algerian prisons?
Yesterday, the legal authorities would ignore the details of his surprise reappearance. “He did not pass through a border post otherwise his name would have reactivated his execution of sentence”, estimates a magistrate. And how did he leave the prison where he is in Algeria? His former lawyers, Mes Alexandre Martin and Edouard Martial do not know. “He was probably released by the Algerian justice system, which had no real intention of trying him for acts committed in France”, supposes the same magistrate.
Far from his family, settled in Pau, from his children in difficulty who live in the Toulouse region, and in the violence of Algerian prisons, Redouane Ikil has made a choice. As for his presentation in Agen, several observers believe that he wanted to avoid the Seysses prison. He who no longer has any recourse, his appeal in cassation was indeed rejected at the end of 2020, must now serve his sentence. Silently ? Not quite the type. But that was before. Perhaps his stay in Algeria will have prompted him to question himself.