Post date: Jun 11, 2012 3:45:21 PM
The lawyers filed the suit at the Palace of Justice in Paris alleging that French police acted illegally by opening fire on Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah after a 30-hour stand-off following a failed attempt to take him.
Merah filmed himself carrying out the murders in three separate incidents over two weeks in March, posting the pictures to an international news channel that did not use them. In the highest-profile incident, Merah killed three Jewish children and one adult at a school near his home in Toulouse.
Lawyers acting for the family of an al-Qaeda inspired gunman who was shot dead by police forces after killing seven people in France last March file an official complaint against the police alleging murder.
PARIS, FRANCE (JUNE 11, 2012) (REUTERS) - Lawyers acting for the Algerian family of an al-Qaeda-inspired gunman who was slain by authorities after he killed seven people in south-western France filed an official complaint on Monday (June 11) against the country's police alleging aggravated murder.
He was identified barely one day after that killing, but when police tried to take him in an early-morning raid they were repelled and besieged him. Officials said that police opened fire on Merah when he tried to leave his apartment through a window more than a day later.
Zahia Mokhtari, the Algerian lawyer retained by Merah's father, said the police should face an investigation over the circumstances surrounding his killing.
"We're asking for justice to remove all the mysteries surrounding this case. And then there's the question of public opinion -- and of course the interests of justice should be served," she said.
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, the French lawyer working with Mokhtari, said the charges would have been pressed earlier, but that the Algerian lawyer had been prevented from travelling to France to lodge the complaint.
"It's a complaint for murder with aggravating circumstances," she said.
A French prosecutor will now have to rule if the complaint has sufficient grounds to appoint an investigator.