France – Toulouse Gunman’s Brother Blames Parents for Anti-Semitism

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    Mohamed Benallal Merah (R), the father of Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Frenchman, speaks during an interview with the French channel 'FRANCE 24' in Algiers, Algeria, 28 March 2012. EPA/MOHAMED MESSARAFrance – A brother of the French gunman who killed seven people in March says in a new book and documentary that he and his siblings were raised on anti-Semitism and that his parents helped radicalize his younger brother.

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    French media published excerpts Sunday of Abdelghani Merah’s book, “My Brother, That Terrorist,” due out Wednesday.

    Mohamed Merah killed three Jewish children, a rabbi and three paratroopers before dying in a standoff with police. Another brother faces preliminarily charges in the case and is in custody.

    In the book, Abdelghani writes to Mohamed: “I will explain how my parents raised you in an atmosphere of racism and hate before the Salafists could douse you in religious extremism.”

    A documentary featuring interviews with Abdelghani and a sister is to air later Sunday.


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    2 Comments
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    iib001
    iib001
    11 years ago

    While I don’t absolve the acts of murder and he got what he deserved had he lived we might have learned more from the brother who is in custody and if so to a very small extent I can understand how he came to do these acts of taking a life. In fact if this claim is proved true the parents should be prosecuted facing long terms behind the bars.

    speakup
    speakup
    11 years ago

    Abdelghani Merah told the daily newspaper “Liberation” from his apartment in Toulouse: “There’s not a single instant that goes by when I don’t think of my brother’s victims. I wish to denounce the hatred in which we were raised, the hatred my brothers’ Salafist friends transmitted to them, denounce the unthinkable that my brother committed. I am the brother of the killer, but I stand with the victims.”

    The father, Mohamed Ben-Allal Merah, was born in 1942 in Souagui, Algeria, and immigrated to France in 1966. Abdelghani said their parents’ divorce affected Mohamed the most. He said the divorce led the younger brother to become “uncontrollable.”

    In an excerpt from the book published Friday in the French media, Abdelghani Merah wrote:

    “I rage against my parents who raised us under violence and intolerance, against my sister Souad, who applauded his [Mohamed’s] fundamentalist deliriums, against my brother Kader, who comforted him in his delirium without ever telling him he was mistaken. But also to my maternal uncles and especially Hamid,” who “never stopped spreading hatred, racism and anti-Semitism in front of us, starting during our tender childhood.”
    Kader is in police custody on charges of complicity in the killings.

    During the funeral for his brother, Abdelghani Merah said, he heard people applauding, yelling praise, cheering and telling his mother to “be proud. Your son brought France to its knees.”

    Abdelghani said he shouted: “My brother is not a hero! He’s a vulgar assassin!” and walked out.