The father of the Islamist terrorist who killed three soldiers and four Jewish
civilians in Toulouse in March, before being shot dead, on Tuesday filed a
lawsuit against the police for what he said was the “murder” of his
son.
Mohamed Benalel Merah, who lives in Algeria, filed his suit against
RAID, the special operations tactical unit of the French National Police that
conducted the siege of the son, Mohamed Merah.
According to Algerian
attorney, Zahia Mokhtari, the head of the family’s legal team, there is evidence
that Merah was “liquidated” by the police and not just killed in an exchange of
fire.
Mokhtari, speaking to the press in Algeria, did not show reporters
the “evidence,” nor provide any details, just explaining that it included videos
filmed by Merah during the siege. In the videos, French TV reported, Merah was
shouting at one of the commandos in front of him: “You, who sent me to
Afghanistan and Pakistan, you are in fact a policeman, treason!” A French member
of the legal team, Isabelle Coutant- Peyre, told journalists that the suit was
being brought for “murder with aggravating circumstances.”
These
circumstances were, according to her, “heavily armed people and a guy shot up
alone in his apartment.
This alone is enough to raise questions.” In
2001, Coutant-Peyre married one of her clients, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (“Carlos
the Jackal”), in a Muslim ceremony.
Mohamed Merah was known to French
authorities since he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Arrested
numerous times in France and even briefly put in jail, last March he carried out
a series of attacks in his home city of Toulouse: He killed three soldiers
before, outside the Ozar Hatorah school, shooting a rabbi and his two children,
and finally the daughter of the headmaster.
He filmed himself carrying
out the attacks.
A few days later, he was identified and found in his
apartment. After a 32-hour siege, he was shot dead while jumping from his
window.
Soon thereafter, 19 people were arrested in France in connection
with the Forsane Alizza Islamist group, to which Merah belonged.