Toulouse burial for gunman

Mohamed Merah's burial was completed in the city of Toulouse on Thursday evening, despite a last-minute appeal from the city's mayor to delay the funeral.

The authorities had first planned to send Merah's remains to his ancestral home in Algeria, but the Algerian government refused this proposal, citing security reasons. This prompted the hurried decision to bury the 23-year-old, al Qaeda-inspired gunman in his birthplace, Toulouse.

The city's Socialist mayor, Pierre Cohen, asked in a statement issued early on Thursday afternoon for a 24-hour delay to the funeral, suggesting that his city might not be the appropriate place for a burial.

"Following Algeria's last-minute refusal to accept Mohamed Merah's body, Pierre Cohen feels that his burial within the city of Toulouse is inappropriate," the statement said. "So he has asked the regional prefect to delay the burial 24 hours."

Despite this appeal, Merah was later buried at the Muslim Cornebarrieu cemetery to the south-east of Toulouse in a discrete ceremony with fewer than 20 people in attendance.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the issue in a television interview on Thursday, saying he hoped to see gunman Mohamed Merah buried quickly and without argument in France.

"He was French. Let him be buried and let's not have any polemics on this matter," Sarkozy told the BFMTV channel.

Father threatens to sue

Merah's family had initially decided to send his remains to Algeria, with his mother saying she feared the grave might be vandalized in France.

Merah killed three French paratroopers in two separate attacks, and then killed three Jewish children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The 23-year-old, thought to be inspired by al Qaeda, was shot dead by police after a 32-hour siege on his Toulouse flat last Thursday.

Merah's father, Mohamed Benalal Merah, who lives in the family's ancestral home of Algeria, criticized French authorities for killing his son, threatening to sue the French government.

"I have said what I think about Mohamed Merah, who acted in a monstrous manner. I have said that his father's protests were profoundly undignified and indecent," President Sarkozy also said on Thursday. "As head of state, I would have preferred that we were able to capture Mohamed Merah alive, we did everything in our power towards that end."

Sarkozy also praised police officers for their "remarkable work" in the lengthy standoff outside Merah's home.

Far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen publicly opposed his burial on French soil, saying it was an "affront to the victims' families." She later described Merah's Toulouse burial as an "undignified capitulation" to the Algerian government by Sarkozy.

msh/acb (AFP, Reuters)