The killing of three Jewish children and a teacher in Toulouse, France, might never have happened, it emerged over the weekend, if gunman Mohammed Merah had murdered his original target on March 19. Before being killed in a shootout at his apartment, Merah told police he did not set out to slaughter his victims at a school in the southern French city, but had “improvised” after missing a chance to kill a French soldier.
The school murders, following Merah’s previous execution-style killing of three soldiers who served in Afghanistan, have traumatized France ahead of its presidential elections.
During a 32-hour siege, Merah told police that after gunning down the three paratroopers, he had already identified another member of the military in Toulouse as his next target. After turning up to kill the man on the morning of March 19, he discovered his target had left home earlier than expected.
In the spur of the moment, Merah turned his high-powered scooter around and headed for a nearby Jewish school. He dismounted and put the scooter on its stand, before shooting at point-blank range at three children under the age of 10 waiting for a school bus.
It has also been revealed how Merah, who claimed to be linked to an al-Qaeda fringe group, had fooled investigators after being summoned to explain visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan in November last year. The 23-year-old claimed he had gone on holiday to find a bride and showed them tourist snaps he had loaded onto a pen drive to verify his story.
Once released, Merah set about collecting an arsenal of weapons he later used in his killing spree, including three .45 Colt handguns, an Uzi and a pump-action shotgun.
Merah’s older brother, Abdelkader, and the brother’s girlfriend, who were arrested last Wednesday, have been transferred to Paris for questioning by France’s specialist anti-terrorist officers. Abdelkader, 29, is said to have denied encouraging Merah to commit the murders, but was reported to have said he was “proud” of his acts.
Merah’s mother, who was arrested at the same time, was released on Saturday. Police are trying to determine if Merah had any help in carrying out the murders ,which have refocused attention on the threat of radical Muslim terrorists.
Bernard Squarcini, head of French intelligence services, said Merah’s story when he was brought in for questioning in November had been convincing, adding that Merah had shown “excellent co-operation, education and courtesy.”
Merah was killed in a hail of fire at his apartment in Toulouse. He had cut off communication and was hiding in the bathroom, hoping to fool police into thinking he had committed suicide. When police entered the apartment, he burst out firing in all directions. Merah had laid out a series of obstacles, including a washing machine and a large black leather sofa. On the apartment’s balcony were materials for making gasoline bombs.
The revelations will raise questions about how Merah succeeded in amassing such an arsenal of weapons — and while unemployed and on benefits — without raising the suspicions of the intelligence services who were supposed to have him under surveillance. The investigation will focus on how an unemployed petty thief could afford an apartment that cost 500 euros (US$670) a month, as well as a rented garage and two hire cars.
An autopsy showed his body was riddled with 30 bullets. One to the head and a second to the abdomen were said to have been fatal. A total of 300 rounds were fired by Merah and police during the operation to end the siege. French investigators say they have found no evidence that Merah was connected to any al-Qaeda group.
The identity of the killer was greeted with dismay among the French Muslim community.
“Up until then we had been praying; praying that it wasn’t someone with foreign roots, a Muslim,” said Khadija Ba, a French women’s campaigner who was born in Morocco. “When they said his name, our hearts sank. Then we knew once again we would be blamed for the terrible killings; blamed for everything.”
“He was a French citizen who slaughtered other French citizens, but all anyone heard was that he was called Mohammed and was a Muslim,” she added.
The killings have also transformed the lead-up to next month’s first round of the presidential election.
Before Toulouse, Socialist candidate Francois Hollande was leading the majority of polls to become the next president of France. The predicted margin between Hollande and French President Nicolas Sarkozy was narrow for the first round on April 22, but all surveys gave Hollande a clear majority in the second round two weeks later.
After Toulouse, Super Sarkozy, “the president protector” — as one analyst described him — is back. Crime and security are Sarkozy’s specialty.
Last week’s standoff between police and Merah sparked memories of France’s longest ever siege when in 1993 a man took children hostage at a kindergarten in the wealthy Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where Sarkozy was mayor. Sarkozy persuaded the assailant, who was later shot dead by police, to release several children and most of France still remembers the photographs of Sarkozy leading them out of the school.
In 2002, when former French President Jacques Chirac was seeking re-election and Sarkozy was his tough-talking interior minister, the assault of an elderly man in Alsace three days before the first round put crime and security at the top of the political agenda and swung the popular vote behind the right. The result saw the right and far-right competing in the second-round runoff and the Socialists out of the race. Earlier in March that year, a gunman had burst into a local council meeting at Nanterre just outside Paris and shot dead eight councilors.
On Thursday evening, a few hours after Merah was killed, Tunisian-born Ali and Jamel, like Merah a Frenchman of Algerian origin, were standing outside the drab apartment block where the gunman lived and died.
“Will this change the election? It changes everything 100 perecent,” Ali said. “And it could not have come at a better time for Nicolas Sarkozy. The sad thing is that he was the one dividing the country by turning toward the far-right before this happened.”
“The problem is that Sarkozy is looking for votes from the extreme right by picking up their themes. And now he will find those votes. This plays very much in favor of Sarkozy. He has been playing on people’s fears and those fears have been realized,” said Thierry de la Cruz, 54, the director of an educative center. “For those waiting for Hollande to be elected, it’s far from being won now. When we heard that the suspect’s name was Mohammed, well, that was a gift for the right.”
Even before the Toulouse shootings, Sarkozy was rising slowly in the polls. The trend appeared to be continuing after Toulouse, but Frederic Dabi, of the opinion pollsters IFOP, said it was too early and too “unwise” to make any predictions about its effect on voters.
“No one can say what will happen,” Dabi said. “Early indicators show that voters are still concentrating on economic and social issues. There is nothing to suggest at this moment that this will become an element in the election or will change people’s motivation.”
“Before Toulouse, the tone of the campaign was already hard, so this might actually calm things. It is too early to say,” he added.
At a gathering of 5,000 people in Toulouse’s Capitole Square on Friday to show solidarity with the families of the victims and call for unity, the political predictions were mixed. A group of students praised the police and the president’s handling of the tragedy and criticized other candidates who have been making political mileage out of the affair as “disgusting.”
“Everyone has their idea of who will benefit politically from this, but the fact that candidates came here to get votes after the school killing has upset many people. It is not well viewed,” Benjamin Atlan, 22, said.
“People said the president should not have come here, but he was doing his job, he was being president. In fact he was the only one who should have come here. The campaign will go on. I don’t honestly know what effect this will have,” Social worker Sonia Ruiz, 32, said.
Hollande’s team insist their man has risen to the occasion.
“The president behaved like the president; Francois Hollande behaved like the leader of the opposition and behaved with the dignity of a man of state,” said Kader Aris of the Socialist party in Toulouse.
“This was a heavy moment that marks the spirit. Today we feel we have to avoid any political exploitation of this tragedy, any further division between people and ensure that the democratic debate continues. I don’t believe it will have any serious political consequences, but we will see in the days to come,” Aris said. “This should not be an element in the election campaign. We have to accompany the families in their grief, be present for them and answer their concerns.”
In the immediate aftermath of the Toulouse shootings, Sarkozy pledged to introduce new legislation making it illegal to look at Web sites encouraging terrorism and to travel abroad for terrorism training.
Hollande’s team refuse to be drawn into a polemic over the issue.
“The right is using security for electoral ends. We will not take part in this. We are not convinced security in itself is a central theme of the election campaign,” said Francois Rebsamen, who is in charge of security for the Socialist candidate. “The French first want solutions regarding employment, spending power, etc, but if we have to talk about security we will do so.”
For Ba, 40, who has been in France for 40 years, the tragedy of Toulouse has made her feel, once again, that she and her north African friends and their French-born children and grandchildren will always be “foreigners” in France.
“Mohammed Merah was French. The people he killed were French. He was a Muslim,” she said. “We should not judge a community for the terrible acts of Mohammed Mehar. We should judge a society.”
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