Three suspects held for involvement in Merah affair

Men are suspected of being involved in last year's Toulouse shooting that left 3 Jewish children, rabbi dead.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
French police in raid on Toulouse shooting suspect 390 (R) (photo credit: REUTERS/Pascal Parrot)
French police in raid on Toulouse shooting suspect 390 (R)
(photo credit: REUTERS/Pascal Parrot)
PARIS – Three new suspects were arrested in southern France Tuesday night and Wednesday morning for their alleged involvement with Mohammed Merah, who killed seven people, including four Jews, in March 2012 in Toulouse and another city in the area.
The arrests came one week after the country commemorated the first anniversary of the attacks.
Two of the suspects were detained on Tuesday night in Toulouse, while the third was taken into custody Wednesday morning in the town of Castres, according to police.
In March 2012, Merah, a young Franco-Algerian Islamist, launched a series of terrorist attacks, killing three French soldiers and four Jews, three of them children at a Jewish day school.
He carried out the shootings from a motor scooter. He was shot dead following a raid led by French antiterrorist police.
Soon afterward, Merah’s older brother, Abdelkader, was arrested – and has been held in detention ever since – for aiding him. Merah also filmed the attacks.
After a third brother made revelations in a book he wrote, police started searching for a “third man,” a mysterious accomplice they suspected of having helped the terrorist.
Many French Islamists have been detained over the past year for their suspected involvement in the killings.
Last year, French president Francois Hollande and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a joint commemorative ceremony at the day school, Or Torah.
A week ago, Hollande and leaders of the local Jewish and Muslim communities commemorated the events in Toulouse’s city center.