Philippe Dubois, sentenced to 28 years in prison for a double murder and detained in the Mauzac penitentiary center, in the Dordogne, escaped on Monday March 13, 2023. The 56-year-old man is actively wanted.
Imprisoned since 2002, Philippe Dubois still has a few years of imprisonment to serve. The man, however, decided to find freedom earlier than expected by escaping from Mauzac-et-Grand-Castang prison, in the Dordogne, on Monday March 13, 2023. The man fled on foot, without using extraordinary means, according to information from France Blue Perigord and his departure was discreet. The alert of the prisoner’s escape was given at the very beginning of the afternoon when the prison guards noted the absence of Philippe Dubois during the roll call. The Bergerac prosecution has since confirmed the prisoner’s escape. The 56-year-old man is actively wanted.
Philippe Dubois, sentenced to 28 years in prison
The inmate who escaped from Dordogne prison is none other than Philippe Dubois. One of the three convicted in the “disappeared of Gairaut” case which shook Nice and its region in 2002. The man, now 56, was found guilty of having killed the owner of the agricultural land he rented as well as the son of the latter, motivated by financial reasons in particular by the monthly income of 12,000 euros that the family received thanks to the rental of its land. If Philippe Dubois was first sentenced to life imprisonment during his trial at the Assizes, his sentence was lowered to 28 years in prison for kidnapping and murder by the Assize Court of Appeal of Bouches-du- Rhône, in 2008. During his two trials, Philippe Dubois was defended by the tenor of the bar and current Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond Moretti.
A successful escape from a half-open prison
How did Philippe Dubois manage to escape? Details of the detainee’s escape are not yet known or have not been released. Was the man made easier by the organization and operation of Mauzac prison in the Dordogne? The penitentiary center is one of the two semi-open prisons in France (along with the Casabianda detention center in Haute-Corse) and accommodates detainees sentenced to heavy sentences, 80% of whom are charged with sexual offences. The prison is laid out like a small suburban village and should serve as an experimental place to study and improve the conditions of detention. The fact remains that the detainees are still monitored by prison officers.
This is not the first time that Philippe Dubois has escaped from prison, according to France info which reports that the inmate’s criminal record mentions a first escape. Note that the man served the first years of his sentence in another establishment before being transferred to Mauzac prison, in the Dordogne.