LIBERATION (France)
PARIS – Three months after the Toulouse shootings, the father of the slain killer Mohamed Merah is suing France for murder. Mohamed Benalel Merah lodged a complaint on Monday in Paris, accusing senior French police officials of murder with aggravating circumstances.
Merah’s son killed seven people around the French southern city of Toulouse last March – including three children in a Jewish school. He was killed several days later, following a 32-hour siege of the police forces in front of his apartment.
“When there are 300-400 heavily-armed people in front of a man locked up on his own in his apartment, it raises questions,” Zahia Mokhtari, Benalel Merah’s lawyer, explained to French newspaper Libération.
The paper also reveals that the Algerian lawyer says he has evidence of Merah’s “liquidation”: two videos, probably recorded by Merah himself, that could prove it was indeed a murder.