His criminal career began with a volley of rocks – a handful of stones hurled at a passing bus by a bored delinquent.
It ended in a hail of 300 bullets, fired by France's most elite police after a 32-hour siege worthy of a Hollywood action movie.
In the space of a few years, Mohamed Merah rose from petty criminal to lethal jihadist – a man who fired at point blank range into the heads of school children, murdering seven people in a nine-day rampage.
The 23-year-old's violent life story finally came to an end on Thursday morning, when police in Toulouse shot him in the head after an intense six-minute gunfight. » | Harriet Alexander, and Fiona Govan, in Toulouse | Saturday, March 24, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Brother of Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah 'dined with him' before Jewish school shooting: The brother of Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse gunman who killed seven people in nine days of terrorist attacks, dined with his sibling hours before he murdered four people at a Jewish school. » | Harriet Alexander | Toulouse | Saturday, March 24, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: » | Harriet Alexander | Toulouse | Saturday, March 24, 2012
Mohamed Merah “dined with” his brother before the Jewish shooting. Dined indeed! Isn’t the verb ‘dine’ rather a grand verb to use for two young men who probably ate in the Islamic way – off a communal platter on the floor? Would it not be more accurate to say that ‘they ate’ together? – © Mark
