FRANCE: Head of the International Terrorism Observatory, Roland Jacquard says the Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah was a "professional terrorist"

Record ID: 351959

  • Title: FRANCE: Head of the International Terrorism Observatory, Roland Jacquard says the Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah was a "professional terrorist"
  • Date: 23rd March 2012
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 22, 2012) (REUTERS) ROLAND JACQUARD, HEAD OF THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM OBSERVATORY SPEAKING TO JOURNALIST JACQUARD SHOWING WHAT HE SAYS IS A "YOUNG JIHADIST'S MANUAL" AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET (SOUNDBITE) (French) ROLAND JACQUARD, HEAD OF THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM OBSERVATORY SAYING: "This is someone who had contacts abroad -- the investigation
  • Embargoed: 7th April 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France, France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA37YRMW04WU60R88KKU1V2GZU5
  • Story Text: A 23-year-old gunman who said al Qaeda inspired him to kill seven people in France died in a hail of bullets on Thursday (March 22) as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gunbattle with elite police commandos.
    Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, died from a gunshot wound to his head at the end of a 30-hour stand-off with police at his apartment in southern France and after confessing to killing three soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi.
    He was firing frantically at police from a Colt 45 pistol as he climbed through his apartment window onto a veranda and toppled to the ground some 5 feet (1.5 metres) below, in a suburb of the city of Toulouse, according to prosecutors and police.
    From his actions, it is evident, says Roland Jacquard of the International Terrorism Observatory, that he knew what he was doing as he was holed up in his apartment.
    "This is someone who had contacts abroad -- the investigation will have to look into it now -- when he travelled there, because he had an experience with weapons, experience with handling pistols, kalashnikovs. The resistance which he showed to the RAID forces, when they tried to enter, when he was inside, in a bathtub. Hiding himself in the bathtub, one knows that it protects from shots fired and from explosions, this shows that even if he was an atypical youth, he was also a professional terrorist," Jacquard said.
    According to officials Merah had taken refuge in his bathroom, wearing a bullet-proof vest under his traditional black djellaba robe, as elite police blasted his flat through the night with flash grenades.
    Merah told negotiators he was trained by al Qaeda in Pakistan and killed three soldiers last week and four people at a Jewish school on Monday to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of French army involvement in Afghanistan.
    "One must know that the investigators have taken in for questioning, his (the gunman's) older brother. They have seized cell phones, they have seized video cameras and to my knowledge, a certain number of documents, DVDs and CDs. There were other elements inside, probably. They will now retrace the tracks, they will contact Pakistani authorities over the last trips he made there, to see exactly who he was able to contact over there. Meaning, a second investigation will take place after his death," Jacquard said.
    Merah has a police record for several minor offences, some involving violence, and was on the radar of French intelligence but a minister said that there was no real evidence that he had been planning radical murders.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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