France in mourning as police spreads dragnet for school killer
Source: Agencies |
March 21, 2012, Wednesday
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POLICE blanketed southern France yesterday, searching for a gunman - possibly a racist, anti-Semitic serial killer - who shot dead four people at a Jewish school and may have filmed his attack.
The manhunt took place as friends and family tearfully mourned those slain at close range in the city of Toulouse - a rabbi, his two young sons and a young girl.
Authorities suspect the killer at the Jewish school was also behind two recent attacks in the same area on French paratroopers that left three dead and one seriously wounded.
The soldiers were of North African and French Caribbean backgrounds.
A "monster" is on the loose in France, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, vowing to track him down.
"There are beings who have no respect for life. When you grab a little girl to put a bullet in her head, without leaving her any chance, you are a monster. An anti-Semitic monster, but first of all a monster," he said.
Focus fell on a group of three paratroopers who had been expelled from their regiment near Toulouse in 2008 for neo-Nazi sympathies, a police official said.
The killer on Monday handled large-caliber guns with expertise, leading some to suspect he had a military or police background.
France was reeling yesterday after Monday's shooting, the deadliest school shooting in the country and the bloodiest attack on Jewish targets in decades. Schools across the country held a moment of silence yesterday to honor the victims, who were heading to Israel for burial.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant described the suspect as "someone very cold, very determined, very much a master of his movements, and by consequence, very cruel."
Gueant said the attacker was wearing a camera around his neck that could be used to film and post video online. He said that gave investigators new clues to the killer's "profile," although he admitted they don't appear to close to an arrest.
He mentioned the three paratroopers who had been kicked out but insisted it was just one of many leads being investigated and "not favored any more than the others."
Norway's Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in a rampage last year, had suggested in an online manifesto before the killings that a camera could be used to film such ethnic-cleansing "operations."
There was no mention in his indictment that he used one.
The manhunt took place as friends and family tearfully mourned those slain at close range in the city of Toulouse - a rabbi, his two young sons and a young girl.
Authorities suspect the killer at the Jewish school was also behind two recent attacks in the same area on French paratroopers that left three dead and one seriously wounded.
The soldiers were of North African and French Caribbean backgrounds.
A "monster" is on the loose in France, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, vowing to track him down.
"There are beings who have no respect for life. When you grab a little girl to put a bullet in her head, without leaving her any chance, you are a monster. An anti-Semitic monster, but first of all a monster," he said.
Focus fell on a group of three paratroopers who had been expelled from their regiment near Toulouse in 2008 for neo-Nazi sympathies, a police official said.
The killer on Monday handled large-caliber guns with expertise, leading some to suspect he had a military or police background.
France was reeling yesterday after Monday's shooting, the deadliest school shooting in the country and the bloodiest attack on Jewish targets in decades. Schools across the country held a moment of silence yesterday to honor the victims, who were heading to Israel for burial.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant described the suspect as "someone very cold, very determined, very much a master of his movements, and by consequence, very cruel."
Gueant said the attacker was wearing a camera around his neck that could be used to film and post video online. He said that gave investigators new clues to the killer's "profile," although he admitted they don't appear to close to an arrest.
He mentioned the three paratroopers who had been kicked out but insisted it was just one of many leads being investigated and "not favored any more than the others."
Norway's Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in a rampage last year, had suggested in an online manifesto before the killings that a camera could be used to film such ethnic-cleansing "operations."
There was no mention in his indictment that he used one.
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