Gunman leaps to his death as police storm apartment
Source: Agencies |
March 23, 2012, Friday
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A GUNMAN who boasted of killing seven people to strike back at France died yesterday after jumping from a window, gun in hand, in a fierce shootout with police, authorities said.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Mohamed Merah, 23, a French citizen of Algerian descent who claimed links to al-Qaida, jumped from his apartment after police burst in and found him holed up in the bathroom.
His dramatic death ended a more than 32-hour standoff with an elite police squad trying to capture him alive.
Merah was wanted in the deaths of seven people - three paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi - all killed since March 11 in what he told police was an attempt to "bring France to its knees."
A volley of gunfire resounded yesterday morning throughout the neighborhood in the southwestern city of Toulouse as police stormed the apartment. Two police officers were wounded in the firefight.
"The killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," Gueant said, adding that the police squad had "never seen an assault like it."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said an investigation was under way to see if the suspect in the series of radical Islam-inspired killings had any accomplices.
Sarkozy also said anyone who regularly visits "websites which support terrorism or call for hate or violence will be punished by the law."
He promised a crackdown on anyone who goes abroad "for the purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology."
Police said that during hours of negotiations on Wednesday, when the standoff first began, Merah admitted to being proud of the seven slayings he carried out in three motorcycle shooting attacks around Toulouse.
Authorities said Merah espoused a radical form of Islam and had been to Afghanistan and the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan, where he claimed to have received training from al-Qaida.
Elite police squads had set off sporadic blasts throughout the night and into the morning - some blew off the apartment's shutters - to pressure Merah to give up.
A new set of detonations resounded at 10:30am, signaling an end to the standoff.
Gueant said police "went in by the door, taking off the door first. They also came in by the windows."
He said police used special video equipment to search the second-floor apartment but found him nowhere, until the special instruments surveyed the bathroom.
"The killer came out" firing "with extreme violence," Gueant told reporters. Police "tried to protect themselves and fired back."
"Mohamed Merah jumped out the window, gun in hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground," Gueant said.
Gueant said earlier that police wanted to capture Merah alive.
On Wednesday, he appeared to toy with police negotiators - first saying he would surrender in the afternoon, then saying he would surrender under the cover of darkness.
Police said that Merah told negotiators he killed the rabbi and three young children at a Jewish school on Monday and three French paratroopers before that in order to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest at the French army's involvement in Afghanistan.
He was also upset over a French government ban last year on face-covering Islamic veils.
One other student and another paratrooper were wounded in his attacks.
Even before Merah's death, the lawyer who had defended him for years on a series of criminal charges predicted that there would be a dramatic and somber end to the standoff in Toulouse.
"He wants to show he is exceptional, omnipotent, and this approach can only end up as something tragic," Christian Etelin had said.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Mohamed Merah, 23, a French citizen of Algerian descent who claimed links to al-Qaida, jumped from his apartment after police burst in and found him holed up in the bathroom.
His dramatic death ended a more than 32-hour standoff with an elite police squad trying to capture him alive.
Merah was wanted in the deaths of seven people - three paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi - all killed since March 11 in what he told police was an attempt to "bring France to its knees."
A volley of gunfire resounded yesterday morning throughout the neighborhood in the southwestern city of Toulouse as police stormed the apartment. Two police officers were wounded in the firefight.
"The killer came out of the bathroom, firing with extreme violence," Gueant said, adding that the police squad had "never seen an assault like it."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said an investigation was under way to see if the suspect in the series of radical Islam-inspired killings had any accomplices.
Sarkozy also said anyone who regularly visits "websites which support terrorism or call for hate or violence will be punished by the law."
He promised a crackdown on anyone who goes abroad "for the purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology."
Police said that during hours of negotiations on Wednesday, when the standoff first began, Merah admitted to being proud of the seven slayings he carried out in three motorcycle shooting attacks around Toulouse.
Authorities said Merah espoused a radical form of Islam and had been to Afghanistan and the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan, where he claimed to have received training from al-Qaida.
Elite police squads had set off sporadic blasts throughout the night and into the morning - some blew off the apartment's shutters - to pressure Merah to give up.
A new set of detonations resounded at 10:30am, signaling an end to the standoff.
Gueant said police "went in by the door, taking off the door first. They also came in by the windows."
He said police used special video equipment to search the second-floor apartment but found him nowhere, until the special instruments surveyed the bathroom.
"The killer came out" firing "with extreme violence," Gueant told reporters. Police "tried to protect themselves and fired back."
"Mohamed Merah jumped out the window, gun in hand, continuing to fire. He was found dead on the ground," Gueant said.
Gueant said earlier that police wanted to capture Merah alive.
On Wednesday, he appeared to toy with police negotiators - first saying he would surrender in the afternoon, then saying he would surrender under the cover of darkness.
Police said that Merah told negotiators he killed the rabbi and three young children at a Jewish school on Monday and three French paratroopers before that in order to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and to protest at the French army's involvement in Afghanistan.
He was also upset over a French government ban last year on face-covering Islamic veils.
One other student and another paratrooper were wounded in his attacks.
Even before Merah's death, the lawyer who had defended him for years on a series of criminal charges predicted that there would be a dramatic and somber end to the standoff in Toulouse.
"He wants to show he is exceptional, omnipotent, and this approach can only end up as something tragic," Christian Etelin had said.
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