News Agencies – March 28, 2012
A young man who claimed responsibility for France’s worst terror attacks in years will be buried Thursday in a Muslim cemetery near the southern city where he was killed in gunfight with police, religious leaders said. Burying Mohamed Merah is a sensitive issue for both his native France and his father’s native Algeria.
His father wanted him buried in a family plot in Algeria. Merah’s body was brought to the airport in the city of Toulouse, and his mother had been expecting to accompany it to Algiers on a flight later in the day. But Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council, or CFCM, told The Associated Press that Algerian authorities refused for “reasons of public order.” Zekri had been liaising with Algerian authorities in Toulouse. Instead, Merah will be buried at the Muslim cemetery in Cornebarrieu, near Toulouse, Zekri said.
