Toulouse Gunman Buried in Paris
The body of the gunman who killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse was buried in France rather than Algeria as his father had requested.
Mohammed Merah was buried Thursday afternoon in a cemetery on the outskirts of Toulouse, despite objections from the city’s mayor.
Algerian authorities refused to allow the body of Mohammed Merah to enter the country for burial, Reuters reported, citing an official at the Grand Mosque of Paris.
The mayor of the Algerian village of Bezzaz reportedly citied security reasons for declining the request, according to Reuters. Merah is a French citizen of Algerian origin.
He was killed by police after a 30-hour siege at his Toulouse home. During the siege, Merah told French police that he killed the Jewish students at the Ozar Hatorah school in revenge for Palestinian children killed in Gaza, and had killed three French soldiers the previous week for serving in Afghanistan.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.