Judgement day for brother of French Jewish school shooter

PARIS: A French court will rule yesterday whether the older brother of a jihadist who shot dead seven people, including three French soldiers and three Jewish children, in 2012 was complicit in the killings.

The trial of Abdelkader Merah, brother of Mohamed Merah, is the first arising out of a wave of violence by mostly homegrown radical Islamists that has claimed the lives of more than 240 people in France in the past five years.

Abdelkader is accused of knowingly facilitating his brother's attacks on a Jewish school in the south western city of Toulouse, in which a rabbi, two of the rabbi's children, aged three and five, and an eight-year-old girl were killed.

The March 2012 assault, which Merah carried out in the name of al-Qaeda, was the deadliest on Jews in France in three decades.

In a nine-day killing spree, the 23-year-old also shot dead three soldiers in the garrison town of Montauban before being killed by police after a 32-hour siege at his home. Investigators believe Abdelkader – who neighbours nicknamed ‘Ben Ben' over his admiration for al-Qaeda leader Osama Laden – had considerable influence over his brother.

The 35-year-old, who lived in the high-rise Toulouse suburb of Les Izards, was known to police for links to ultraconservative Salafist groups.

He admitted to being present when his brother stole a scooter that was used in the attacks, but denied any knowledge of his intentions. The trial lifted the lid on a dysfunctional family, in which three of five children born to Algerian immigrant parents came under the spell of radical Islamists.

Both Abdelkader and Mohamed spent time in prison for acts of delinquency – an experience that radicalised the younger Merah and left him thirsting for revenge against France.

In 2011, he travelled to the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan to join the Qaeda-affiliated Jund al-Khalifa. — AFP