He removes his electronic bracelet and jumps on a plane: the Reunion Islander arrested in Montpellier returns to prison

L'interpellation s'est déroulée à la gare routière de Sabines. Midi Libre – JEAN MICHEL MART

Fresh out of prison, a 53-year-old man had tried to flee to Metropolitan France. Thanks to effective collaboration between the gendarmerie and police services, he was arrested and tried in immediate appearance.

“I arrived from Reunion Island, where it was 36°C, to Paris, where it was 0°C. That's when I decided to take a bus to Montpellier!”

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Nothing predestined Joseph, who had never left Reunion Island, to be quietly arrested at the Montpellier bus station in Sabines, after getting off a bus from Paris on February 1. It was his purchases of plane and bus tickets that allowed the gendarmerie and police services to find him.

“My partner was putting pressure on me”

Two days earlier, the 53-year-old man had cut his electronic bracelet before jumping on a plane to Paris. Convicted sixteen times, most often for fraud, he had just come out of yet another prison sentence, from October 2024 to January 2025.

Why such a hasty escape? “My accounts were frozen, and my partner was pressuring me to repay my debts”, he explained. “I wrote bad checks and I have a ban on managing, I can no longer do business in Reunion. After an argument on January 30, I chose to leave.”

“She said that you had been aggressive and violent towards her”, the president recalled however.

Eight months in prison

“It was his partner's threat to go and tell nonsense that made him flee, his lawyer pleaded. He knew that he wouldn't be believed, and that he wouldn't be able to keep his home. Either he paid or he went to prison. He panicked. I'm asking for a fully suspended sentence so that he can get on with his life.”

“His suspended sentences have already been revoked twice and he was trusted again by being put under an ankle monitor, the prosecutor recalled. His explanation seems shaky to me.” He requested 10 months of imprisonment with continued detention. The judges finally sentenced him to an 8-month firm sentence.

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