German police said on Tuesday that they were planning on lengthy searches to find a fugitive in trellis, presented like " a madman of the weapons ", which vanished in Black Forest after having threatened and disarmed police officers Sunday.
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" We will not relax " our efforts to find him, said the police chief of Offenburg, Reinhard Renter, during a press conference on the progress of the investigation. " We are persistent, " he added while 200 police are currently looking for him.
Already nicknamed " Rambo " by the large press in reference to the hero of a series of films, the thirty-something homeless has been on the run since Sunday morning in the region of Oppenau, a small German city 40 km from the city French of Strasbourg.
The police said they were convinced that Yves Rausch, 31, heavily armed, was still in the forest near Oppenau, which he knows very well. " The forest is simply his living room, " said Mr. Renter. " We do not know what prompted the suspect to do so, " said prosecutor Herwig Schäfer.
Child pornography
Shaved head and small goatee, the thirties have " a great affinity with arms ", according to the prosecutor who even describes him as " mad with arms " even if he never belonged, according to the authorities, to a shooting club . The authorities have so far found no political motivation for the move.
In 2010, he was banned from carrying weapons and ammunition. Known to the police for various crimes, he notably served a prison sentence of three and a half years for aggravated injuries on a woman hit by a crossbow shot. Police also said they found images of child pornography on his cell phone when they were investigating him last year for possession of explosives.
Alerted by a witness, a patrol had tried unsuccessfully to apprehend him Sunday in a cabin where he had been seen. But he had managed to flee by stealing the service weapons of the four police officers who came to control him. He had threatened them " suddenly and completely unexpectedly " with a weapon, according to the police. A European arrest warrant has since been issued against him. The schools and nurseries of Oppenau in particular had been closed on Monday as a precaution.