Holed-Up French Suspect Plans Nighttime Surrender; Gunman’s Brother and Mother Detained
The Interior Minister says a holed-up suspect wanted for shooting seven people dead plans to turn himself in to French police surrounding him at night “to be more discreet.”
Claude Gueant told France-2 TV that the suspect, Mohamed Merah, appeared to have acted alone in the killings — but also claimed to authorities that he met al-Qaida “chiefs” while traveling in Pakistan last year.
As night fell in France, the standoff moved into its 17th hour. Three police were wounded as they tried to arrest the 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent during a raid around 3 a.m. the previous night.
Prosecutors have said Merah was a self-taught radical Salafi who had been to Afghanistan twice and had trained in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
TOULOUSE, France (AP) — In a tense, daylong standoff, French riot police surrounded a building Wednesday in southwest France, demanding the surrender of a gunman whom they say boasted of shooting seven victims in an al-Qaida-linked terror spree.
Hundreds of police cordoned off the streets around an apartment complex in the city of Toulouse after a pre-dawn raid to arrest the suspect, a 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent, erupted into a firefight. Three police were wounded and negotiations with the suspect dragged on for hours.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said the gunman, Mohamed Merah, was a self-taught radical Salafi who expressed glee at killing three Jewish children, a rabbi and three French paratroopers. Merah had been to Afghanistan twice and had trained in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan, he said.
The prosecutor said Merah was planning to kill another soldier imminently, so police had to launch the 3 a.m. raid.
In the negotiations, the suspect “expresses no regret, only that he didn’t have time to have more victims. And he even bragged, he said, of bringing France to its knees,” the prosecutor said.
The gunman’s brother and mother were being detained. Molins said the brother, Abdelkader, had been implicated in a 2007 network that sent militant fighters to Iraq.