Merah affair: Sister and mother of Islamist terrorist arrested

French authorities take into custody sister, mother of Islamist Muhammad Merah, who murdered 7 people, 4 of which were Jews in Toulouse 2 years ago.

By JOSEPH STRICH
Handcuffs (illustrative photo) 370 (photo credit: Reuters)
Handcuffs (illustrative photo) 370
(photo credit: Reuters)
The sister and mother of Islamist Muhammad Merah, who murdered seven people, four of which were Jews, have been taken into custody recently.
It’s been two years since the Merah affair, which took place in the south of France.
The anti-terrorist police of Paris and the judicial police of Toulouse, are looking for Merah’s accomplices.
Since the start of the investigation 24 months ago they have arrested 30 persons, trying to find out how the young French-Algerian terrorist got the arms he used for the March 2012 killing of 3 soldiers in Montauban, three Jewish children and the father of two of them in a Jewish school in Toulouse, before being shot dead by the anti-terrorist special unit of the police, the RAID. The police have laso been looking into the financial and material support he had received.
Most of the suspects have been released, except for three that are still under arrest: Abdelkader Merah, the older brother of the killer, Muhammad Mounir Miskine, a friend, and Fetha Malki, the arms supplier.
The website of the local daily, La Depeche du Midi, reported on Tuesday that the sister was arrested on Monday evening in Toulouse.
The sister, Souad, had been arrested once before for condoning terrorism, after she was secretly recorded – in a conversation with another one of her brothers – saying she was proud of Muhammad. Following the arrest she condemned the seven murders.
The national radio station, Europe 1, said that the mother, Zoulikha Aziri, had also been interrogated for by police two weeks ago, for 24 hours, then released.
Aziri was suspected of following the recording of an Internet connexion from her apartment’s computer to an advertisement put on the web by the paratrooper Ibn Ziaten. He had wanted to sell his scooter, and subsequently became Merah’s first victim.
Asked by Europe 1, she confirmed having been questioned about the presence of her son in her apartment at 11 p.m. on March 4, 2012, but denied its verity.
Since the shooting, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the country has increased, and the number of Jews making aliya to Israel is continuously growing.