French gunman's body to go to Algeria: relative

The body of an Islamist gunman branded a "monster" who boasted of killing seven people in southern France is due to arrive in Algeria on Thursday, a family member told AFP on Wednesday.

Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent, was killed by police March 22 after a lengthy stand-off at his Toulouse apartment.

A close relative of Merah, who asked not to be named, told AFP his remains would arrive in Algiers on at 1315 GMT on Thursday, via an Air Algeria flight.

The body "will be accompanied by the mother and a sister of the deceased," the relative said, adding the corpse would first be washed in France, according to the customs, before being buried in the Medea region south of Algiers.

"I am coordinating the details of the funeral with the father, who is completely overwhelmed by the situation," the killer's uncle Djamel Aziri told AFP.

Algerian authorities, however, had yet to agree to Merah being buried in the north African country, said Abdellatif Mellouki, head of a religious faith council in southern France.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has said Merah was a "fanatic and a monster" who killed three soldiers and four people in three attacks in and around Toulouse.

Merah's father, Mohamed Benalel Merah, said Wednesday he would not "shut up" after saying he wanted to sue France for the death of his son.

The comment, reported in Algerian Arab-language daily newspaper, came after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe reacted angrily to the threat of a legal challenge.

"If I were the father of such a monster, I would shut my mouth in shame," Juppe said.

When police surrounded Merah's Toulouse apartment last week, the gunman fought off an initial assault and then, in a conversation with a police negotiator, claimed responsibility for all three attacks.

He said he shot dead three soldiers in two separate attacks in Toulouse and nearby Montauban on March 11 and 15, then last Monday he opened fire at a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing a 30-year-old teacher, his sons aged five and four, and a seven-year-old girl.

The killer's father told AFP that he had noticed a change in his son's behaviour the last time he returned to see his family in Algeria.

"He didn't appear to want to go out and stayed in his room to recite the Koran and read books. As soon as he'd hear the muezzin (calling for prayer), he would run to the mosque," Mohamed Benalel Merah said.

"He was afraid my two other (younger) children could sneak into his room and had a lock fitted on the door," he added.

On Sunday, authorities charged the gunman's brother, 29-year-old Abdelkader Merah, with complicity in the attacks, but he has denied any involvement.

A video apparently of the killings was sent to the Al-Jazeera news channel Tuesday, along with a letter in poorly written French claiming the attacks in the name of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Jazeera said it would not broadcast the footage.

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