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PARIS (AP) — An Algerian lawyer said Monday that she has evidence the young man accused of killing seven people in attacks on French soldiers and a Jewish school claimed his innocence to police. Separately, France announced it was expelling several foreign Islamist extremists on its soil.
Mohamed Merah, 23, was killed after a more than 30-hour standoff with police at his apartment in Toulouse after being identified as the suspect behind the killing spree last month. Authorities have said that during negotiations Merah claimed to have links to al-Qaida and confessed to the killings.
But Zahia Mokhtari, a lawyer for Merah's Algerian father, told BFM television on Monday that she had two identical videos of Merah that contradict the police narrative. "In these videos, he says, 'I am innocent. Why are you killing me? I didn't do anything,'" she said.
Mokhtari would not detail how she got the videos, saying she would reveal more on their origin once she files a lawsuit in French courts against the elite police force, RAID, that killed Merah.
Merah is alleged to have killed three paratroopers, a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren, attacks that put French authorities on edge. President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed a crackdown on foreign Islamist radicals, and the Interior Ministry said Monday that deportations are in progress.
An Algerian Islamist radical convicted for a role in 1994 attacks in Marrakech and said to have recently started linking up again with extremists was deported Monday along with an imam from Mali who preached anti-Semitism and the rejection of the West, the Interior Ministry said.
A Saudi imam who has systematically preached the need to isolate women among other things is to be forced home imminently. Efforts to deport two other people are in progress and more such actions can be expected "shortly," the statement said.
A police official with knowledge of the investigation into the Merah case cast doubt on the Algerian lawyer's claims about the videos Monday, noting that Merah led police to evidence that proved he was the perpetrator.
Prosecutors say Merah spoke at length with negotiators from the RAID force throughout the standoff while he was holed up in a Toulouse apartment.
During these conversations, authorities say, Merah told them where to find a video he took of the crime spree. Al-Jazeera television has said it received a copy of the video, which shows the deaths of three paratroopers, three Jewish children and a rabbi from the killer's point of view.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of police rules, added that Merah had toyed with police during the standoff, initially agreeing to surrender but later vowing to "die with his weapons in his hands."
Police have said that Merah said he had links to al-Qaida but have cast doubt on that claim. They are holding his brother on suspicion he helped to prepare the attacks and are looking for a possible third man who may also have been involved.
The killings have left France reeling, reviving worries about Islamist extremism and shaking up the French presidential campaign.
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.
By Spc. Ryan Hallock, AFP/Getty Images
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAYThe home of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians, is located in Bonney Lake, Wash."It's going to be a difficult case for the prosecution to prove," Browne said. "There's no 'CSI' information. There's no DNA that I know of. There's no ballistics that I know of."Bales has indicated that he had no recollection of prescription drugs he may have been taking before the shooting — something the attorney took as an indicator of larger memory problems. The lawyer also said his client has a sketchy memory of the night of the shootings.U.S. military officials said Bales was drinking on a southern Afghanistan base on March 11 before creeping away to two villages at night, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine were children.Bales has had incidents involving alcohol and violence in the past.In 2002, he was arrested on a charge of a drunken assault of a security guard at a Tacoma casino. That charge was dismissed after Bales completed 20 hours of anger management training.In 2008, a couple accused an intoxicated Bales of grabbing a woman's hand and thrusting it toward his crotch before kicking and punching the woman's boyfriend, according to a police report. Prosecutors declined to pursue that case.Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.