Series of attacks in Midi-Pyrénées

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Midi-Pyrénées region with the cities of Toulouse and Montauban, where the Islamist attacks took place .

Seven people were killed in a series of attacks in Midi-Pyrénées in March 2012. The Islamist attacks took place in the cities of Toulouse (March 11th and 19th) and Montauban (March 15th) in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France . The first two attacks on March 11 and March 15 were directed against soldiers and resulted in three deaths and one seriously injured. In the third attack on March 19, four people were killed in front of a Jewish school, three of the victims were children.

attacks

In all three cases, the perpetrator, Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Algerian of Islamic faith and French nationality, drove up on a motor scooter , fired at his victims and is said to have used the same weapon . On the night of March 21, 2012, police officers from the RAID special unit surrounded the apartment building in the Côte Pavée district of Toulouse where the suspect lived. The perpetrator died on the morning of March 22, 2012 after the French police's special unit RAID broke into the apartment building and there was a shooting in which two police officers were wounded. According to the French interior minister Claude Guéant , the man jumped out of the window of his bathroom and was killed by a sniper shot in the head. Merah is said to have called himself a mujahid and a member of the al-Qaeda terror network .

In three attacks four days apart, the perpetrator, who drove a black scooter and wore a helmet with a darkened visor, killed seven people and seriously injured two others in broad daylight. According to the police, the scooter is a Yamaha TMax 530 ; A Colt .45 caliber was used as the weapon in all three cases , and in one case a 9-millimeter pistol was also used.

March 11th - Murder in Toulouse

On March 11, the 30-year-old paratrooper Imad Ibn-Ziaten of the 1st régiment du train parachutiste in Toulouse was shot in the head while he was leaving a sports hall in Toulouse in civilian clothes. He wanted to sell a motorcycle there privately and had arranged to meet the assassin for this. The soldier was of Moroccan origin.

His mother Latifa Ibn Ziaten then founded an interreligious peace movement in France. She was honored with a prize for this on November 19, 2015 by the Chirac Foundation.

March 15 - Double murder in Montauban

In the second attack on March 15 in Montauban, 50 kilometers north of Toulouse, two airborne pioneers were killed and a third seriously injured while they were presumably standing at an ATM outside a shopping center. The three soldiers belonged to the 17th e régiment du génie parachutiste brigade . The uniformed group was unarmed. The two killed soldiers, 24 and 25 years old, were of North African origin, the seriously injured man is a 28-year-old NCO from Guadeloupe . The surveillance cameras showed a black-clad scooter driver wearing a helmet with a darkened visor.

Both the unit in Toulouse and the one in Montauban to which the victims belonged are involved in operations in Afghanistan , among other things . A weapon in caliber .45 (11.43 mm) was used. 17 shell casings were found in Montauban; the soldier in Toulouse had been killed by a projectile from the same weapon. A magazine was also found in Montauban .

March 19 - Attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse

At around 8 a.m. on the morning of March 19, the perpetrator drove a scooter to the Jewish Orthodox Collège Ozar Hatorah in a quiet residential area of ​​Toulouse and fired a smaller 9 mm weapon at a teacher who was with other adults and Children stood in front of the building. Then he parked his scooter and entered the school grounds, where he shot around with a larger gun. He killed thirty-year-old Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young children and the eight-year-old daughter of the school principal. All victims were French- Israeli dual citizens. A 17-year-old student was seriously injured. The perpetrator was able to escape on his scooter.

After this attack, the government in Paris proclaimed the highest level of the anti-terrorist plan Vigipirate, introduced in 1981, in three departments around Toulouse.

Manhunt and killing

The alleged perpetrator's place of residence and one of the crime scenes are only a few kilometers apart

In all three cases, witnesses had stated that the perpetrator had fled the scene on a scooter or moped. After the soldiers were murdered, the French domestic intelligence service DCRI investigated a 23-year-old man as a suspected perpetrator. After the attack on the Jewish school, the suspicions are said to have increased. On the night of March 21, the special forces and police surrounded the house where the alleged perpetrator lived in Côte Pavée, a district of Toulouse. There was a shooting in which three police officers were injured. In the morning hours of March 22nd, the elite unit advanced into the apartment using a robot. When the alleged perpetrator was located in the bathroom by the robot, there was another shooting, in the course of which Merah injured three emergency services. He then tried to escape and was killed by a sniper while jumping out the window . Reports of the death of the serial killer were confirmed by the French interior minister around noon.

During the 30 hours that Merah holed himself up in his small apartment, he is said to have referred to himself as a Muslim mujahid and member of al-Qaeda in negotiations with the special unit of the French national police RAID (comparable to the German GSG 9 ) and made a confession to have. RAID experts said that Merah called himself a " mujahed ", a warrior of God, during the siege .

The motive for his act Merah called in a call to a journalist from the radio station France 24 that he had with the murders against the concealment ban , the Afghanistan mission of the French army and the situation in Palestine to protest. He was known to the French police and is believed to have been in Pakistan and Afghanistan , where he was once arrested. Interior Minister Claude Guéant , who was on the scene, said Merah had been radicalized in a " Salafist group " in Toulouse that had about a dozen members but no name. With his deed, Merah wanted to avenge Palestinian children, whose death in his opinion was partly due to the French army. In a message, the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad strongly condemned this justification for the murders.

Reactions and investigations

On March 23, it was announced that Mohamed Merah sustained more than twenty gunshot wounds in the firefight, according to the autopsy report. Two of them were fatal: one on the left temple and another in the abdomen.

A connection between Mohamed Merah and organized groups or with the al-Qaeda terror network cannot be proven (as of March 2012) - Merah had described himself as a member of the al-Qaida terror network. There is no evidence that Mohamed Merah was trained by or had contact with organized groups or jihadists .

The former investigative judge and candidate in the French presidential election campaign in 2012 , Eva Joly , criticizes an “over- mediatization ” of the siege by Interior Minister Claude Guéant , who, in her opinion, commented on the event “like a journalist” in front of the camera. "To see a minister of the interior on the scene, commenting live on what is happening, and making himself the conveyer of the words of Mohamed Merah - that is unbelievable!"

On the evening of March 25, 2012, prosecutors in France brought charges against Abdelkader Merah, the 29-year-old brother of the man who had been killed, on suspicion of being an accessory to murder and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. He admitted to having been present when the scooter was stolen, but denied the allegations. Abdelkader Merah first became known to security services in 2007 as a militant Islamist . The suspicion against mother and wife was initially not confirmed; both were released on March 24th.

The third man

The government initially insisted that Mohamed Merah ( Arabic محمد مراح; October 10, 1988 - March 22, 2012) is an “atypical individual perpetrator” who radicalized himself , perhaps still supported by his brother Abdelkader. After the videos surfaced that Mohamed Merah was alleged to have filmed of the murders, police officially began looking for a third man who could have helped him steal the scooter.

On March 24, the Paris office of Al Jazeera television received an envelope containing a USB stick that had been posted in a village near Toulouse on March 20. It is questionable who sent him, as Mohamed Merah was already under police surveillance at the time. The video shows an approximately 25-minute montage in chronological order of scenes from the murders of March 11th, 15th and 19th and is accompanied by recited verses from the Koran and music. It does not show the face of the serial killer and does not contain any comments. In an accompanying unsigned letter, the author confessed to the deeds and claimed to have acted on the orders of God and al-Qaeda, the bureau chief of Al Jazeera described.

The former head of the DST counterintelligence , Yves Bonnet, suspects Merah to be an informant. On March 27, he told the Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche du Midi that Merah was not only known as an Islamist at the DCRI , but had a contact person there. “Call it a contact person, call it a command officer (…). I don't know how far these relationships went, this collaboration with the ministry, but you can really ask yourself questions at this point. "

According to the Italian newspaper Il Foglio , Mohamed Merah traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 with the help of the French foreign intelligence service DGSE as its informant. The Israeli domestic secret service Shin Bet confirmed the entry from Merah via Jordan to the West Bank over the Allenby Bridge in September 2010, but contradicted the statements of the head of the domestic secret service DCRI , Bernard Squarcini , that Merah was picked up by the police with a knife.

Bernard Squarcini denied allegations that Mohamed Merah was an informer for security agencies. Squarcini told AFP on March 27th that Merah was not an "informant of the DCRI or any other French or foreign service ".

Arrests

On November 4, 2012, police announced that two people had been arrested and interrogated in the course of the investigation. A man and his partner are said to have supported Merah in the attacks.

Trial and verdict

At the beginning of October 2017, a trial against Mohamed Merah's older brother Abdelkader began in a French court. Abdelkader Merah was charged with complicity in the attacks. On November 2, 2017, he was found guilty of involvement in a terrorist organization and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In April 2019, the appeals court increased the sentence to 30 years.

Web links

 Wikinews: Series of murders in southern France spreads fear and horror  - news
 Wikinews: Toulouse: Police storm apartment, assassin is dead  - news
 Wikinews: Toulouse serial killer - criticism of security  agencies - message

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC: Merah victim Imad Ibn Ziaten 'refused to lie down'
  2. ↑ Stefan Simons: Mohammed Merah and the Secret Services: Islamist, Unmolested, Noticeable. In: Spiegel Online. March 22, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Sam Kiley: Tuerie de Toulouse: un dispositif de sécurité et d'investigation hors norme. In: Le Monde . March 20, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 (French).
  4. ↑ a b c Series of murders shocked France. Attack on school in Toulouse. In: Spiegel Online . March 19, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Foundation IMAD IBN ZIATEN ( Memento of 8 December 2015, Internet Archive ), Foundation Chirac , awards ceremony and prize for conflict prevention 2015 .
  6. ↑ Mohamed Legouad (24) and Abel Chennouf (25)
  7. ↑ France: Scooter driver shoots two soldiers. In: Spiegel Online . March 15, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Mysterious series of murders against French soldiers. Does the trail lead to Afghanistan? In: Focus . March 16, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  9. ^ Suspect in France Remains in Standoff With Police. In: The New York Times . March 21, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Merah remained unmolested despite reports. In: N24 . March 22, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  11. ↑ Elite police officers shoot Mohamed M. In: Die Zeit . March 22, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  12. ↑ Al-Qaeda-affiliated group confesses to murder. (No longer available online.) In: stern . March 22, 2012, archived from the original on March 27, 2012 ; Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Alleged assassin does not give up yet. (No longer available online.) In: tagesschau.de . March 21, 2012, archived from the original on March 23, 2012 ; Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  14. ↑ Holger Dambeck: Assassinations in southern France: Police besieged suspect's house in Toulouse. In: Spiegel Online . March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  15. ↑ Toulouse: Terror suspect shoots around the apartment. In: The world . March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  16. ↑ Lilith Volkert and Friederike Grasshoff: Assassin from Toulouse: Who was Mohammed Merah? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 29, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2012 .
  17. ↑ Tuerie de Toulouse: Fayyad rejette le "terrorisme au nom de la Palestine". In: Charente libre ( Charente newspaper ). March 21, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 (French).
  18. ↑ Series of murders in Toulouse: Assassin Merah hit by more than 20 bullets. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . March 24, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  19. ^ After the terror series: What did France's secret services know? In: Hamburger Abendblatt . March 23, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  20. ↑ Mohammed Merah - the assassin of Toulouse: brother of the serial killer denies complicity. In: Focus . March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  21. ↑ Sarkozy sees Merah as a lone perpetrator. In: Southeastern Switzerland . March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  22. ^ France disputes investigative errors. In: time online . March 23, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  23. ↑ Al Jazeera not to air French killings video. In: Al Jazeera . March 27, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 .
  24. ↑ Mohamed Merah avait des relations avec la DCRI, selon l'ex-patron de la DST. In: La Dépêche du Midi . March 27, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 (French).
  25. ↑ Police are looking for accomplices of the Toulouse bomber. In: Zeit Online . March 27, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2012 .
  26. ↑ Lo stragista di Tolosa viaggiava all'estero con la copertura dei servizi. (No longer available online.) In: Il Foglio . March 26, 2012, archived from the original on March 29, 2012 ; Retrieved March 29, 2012 (Italian).
  27. ^ Israël confirme une visite de trois jours de Mohamed Merah in 2010. In: Le Monde . March 26, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 (French).
  28. ↑ Shin Bet security service confirms Toulouse gunman spent time in Israel. In: Haaretz . March 26, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 .
  29. ^ French intelligence chief: Toulouse shooter arrested by Israel Police in 2010 for possession of a knife. In: Haaretz . March 23, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 .
  30. ↑ Bernard Squarcini: "Nous ne pouvions pas aller plus vite". In: Le Monde . March 23, 2012, accessed March 29, 2012 (French).
  31. ↑ Arrests of terrorist helpers
  32. ↑ lefigaro.fr
  33. ↑ FAZ.net October 19, 2017 / Michaela Wiegel : Big bin Ladin, small bin Ladin - and mom
  34. ↑ spiegel.de: Brother of Toulouse attacker sentenced to 20 years in prison
  35. ↑ lefigaro.fr: Merah condamné à 20 ans de réclusion, Malki condamné à 14 ans
  36. ↑ derstandard.at: brother of the Toulouse attacker sentenced to 30 years in prison