At Bucharest airport, the spectacular extradition of Mohamed Amra

It is a beautiful blue sky and a generous sun that are reflected in the bay windows of the main entrance in the large departure hall of the Otopeni “Henri Coanda” international airport, located 20 km north of Bucharest, the Romanian capital. A rather quiet weekday in this usually overloaded airport. It is 3:40 p.m. (local time) when suddenly, without making a sound, 3 identical armored vehicles stop in front of one of the two main entrances. Men dressed in bulletproof vests, masked, with large helmets on which GoPro on-board cameras have been installed, get out like felines from the first two vehicles. The sliding door of the last one finally opens. Inside, Mohamed Amra is flanked by two other heavily armed police officers, belonging to the Bucharest anti-terrorist brigade.

Outside, the journalists, videographers and photographers from all the Romanian media are lined up wisely behind a very light police cordon. A smiling Mohamed Amra - as usual since he was arrested by the Romanian police - is taken out of the armoured vehicle and led inside the terminal, followed by the cohort of journalists who now surround him and jostle to film him from the front. Then begins a “tracking shot” of about two minutes in one of the corridors that houses a row of check-in counters, closed for the occasion. Amra advances at a fairly slow pace, protected on the left and right by the hooded police officers. In front and behind, the journalists hold out their microphones, trying to ask him questions. The whole group is surrounded by airport security police officers.

It is a mind-blowing scene, which we are not used to seeing in France. Whereas here, in Romania, there is a sort of agreement between journalists and the police special forces who, for this type of operation, like to stage it. Everyone wins: the press can make images and the police can show off their successes to the general public. Amra, for his part, plays along. No regrets on his face. While the whole of France has held its breath for the last three days. At the end of this “walk” among carefree travelers, Mohamed Amra disappears behind a yellow metal door on which we can read the inscription “emergency exit” affixed to the “no entry” road logo. We will not see him again. Half an hour later, half a dozen police officers from the special forces come out through this same door. Mohamed Amra was, without a doubt, taken through a long tunnel, to an area close to the runways, to be loaded into a Falcon plane. It will take off at 4:39 p.m. (local time) for Villacoublay (Yvelines).

24 hours earlier, Mohamed Amra had appealed his detention in Bucharest, an appeal that was immediately deemed inadmissible by the Romanian justice system. The most wanted man in France was handed over to the national judicial authorities in an extremely short time, thanks to "excellent cooperation, very close and very harmonious, between the French and Romanian police services," the Romanian Minister of the Interior said. On Tuesday evening, speaking on France Info, Catalin Predoiu explained that a "mixed, large team, made up of very experienced police officers, who synchronized at several levels, was able to track down the drug trafficker on Romanian soil in a very effective manner." Regarding this very rapid extradition, Catalin Predoiu said that no exceptional procedure had been put in place, given the seriousness of the facts.

In the evening, in Paris, the public prosecutor immediately charged Mohamed Amra with murder, attempted murder, escape, theft and receiving stolen goods, all as part of an organized gang.