Publicity-loving fugitive thumbs nose at authority

Press, 5 January 1979, Page 5

Publicity-loving fugitive thumbs nose at authority

NZPA-Reuter Paris The French fugitive public enemy No. 1, Jacques Mesrine, has thumbed his nose at authority again in an interview prepared for publication in the Left-wing newspaper, “Liberation.” The publicity-conscious Mesrine, who staged a spectacular jailbreak from La Sante Prison in Paris last May 8, repeated his demands for an end to France’s topsecurity prisons. Mesrine said in the interview that he had burst into the home of a Paris magistrate, Charles Petit, last November with the intention of killing the judge.

“For personal reasons, 1i went to Petit’s house to exe-[ cute him, but that was not' my main motive,” Mesrine! said. ' “I wanted to needle people; into thinking about the top-i security wings . . . which[ are a form of legalised mur-, der,” the much-hunted gang-1 ster said. Mesrine said he was living happily with his girlfriend, nicknamed “The Italian,” and was not at all worried about being found by the police. Since May, he has carried out two hold-ups and attempted a kidnapping, each time escaping police dragnets. i

The gangster's escape [from La Same was his third 'getaway from justice since I 1972. He is also wanted in Canada on murder charges. A journalist who interviewed him for the weekly magazine, “Paris Match,” ,was charged in November [with concealing a criminal. A spokesman for “Liberation” said the paper had published the article because it considered Mesrine newsworthy despite the possibility of prosecution. He said the paper had paid the gangster no fee and would not reveal its sources to the police.