Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

French Muslim Jailed for Threats on Toulouse Jewish School

A man who made death threats against the Ohr Hatorah School in Toulouse where Mohamed Merah shot dead four people last year was ordered jailed for a year by a French court.

Lucien Abdelrhafor, 20, on Monday in an expedited court proceedure also received an additional year’s suspended jail term for phoning in the threats to the school, L’Express daily reported.

According to SPCJ, the French Jewish community’s security service, the man called the Ohr Hatorah School in Toulouse on Sept. 16 and told a secretary, “I am Mohammed Merah’s cousin and I’m coming over tonight to kill you.”

Merah in March 2012 gunned down a rabbi and three children at the school, which changed its name from Ozar Hatorah after the attack.

He had also claimed to be a “cousin” of Merah — a false claim according to SPCJ.

SPCJ said police have arrested several callers who threatened violence against the school following the shooting. French police believe Merah planned the shooting with his older brother, Abelkader, who is in prison awaiting trial.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.