Alleged Toulouse shooter’s father sues French police

"Mr. [Mohammed Benalal] Merah came to our office in Algiers yesterday to formally ask us to sue the French security services (RAID) for not having followed procedure during the attempt to arrest Mohamed Merah and his murderer," Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari told AFP on Wednesday.

"Mr. Merah thinks that his son was murdered. He has asked us to file a complaint against the French security services. We will begin the procedure once the burial is completed." she added.

Mohammed’s family has requested Algerian authorities to allow his burial in the North African country, but the authorities have reportedly not agreed with the request yet.

On March 22, the 23-year-old Mohammed, was killed after the French security forces laid a 30-hour-plus-long siege on the place where he had been holed up. Authorities claim he had admitted to having links to al-Qaeda before his death, about which there are conflicting reports.

French officials initially said Merah jumped to his death out of a window of his hideout, while they revised their report later, saying that he was shot and killed by security forces.

Mohamed was suspected of killing a rabbi and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons in a shooting spree at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The school principal’s 10-year-old daughter was also killed in the incident that left a fifth person injured.

The French police have linked the attack to two other shootings days before Mohamed’s death, in which three soldiers of North African or Caribbean descent were killed.

Police sources say the same gun has been used in all the attacks and that the modus operandi of the killings indicates military training.