Algeria refuses French gunman's body for burial

Algerian authorities have refused to allow the body of an al Qaeda-inspired gunman who killed seven people in France this month to be sent there for burial as his father had asked, an official at a top French mosque said on Thursday. Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin who was shot dead by a police sniper last week following a more than 30-hour siege at his home in the southern city of Toulouse, will instead be buried in Toulouse, Abdallah Zekri told Reuters. Zekri, an advisor to the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris who was in Toulouse dealing with the funeral arrangements, said the mayor of the Algerian village of Bezzaz where Merah's father wanted him buried had declined the request for security reasons. "The mayor of Bezzaz gave a negative response," he said. "He should be buried within 24 hours, probably in the Toulouse region, but it will be kept strictly private." On Wednesday, Mohamed Merah's father, Mohamed Benalel Merah, told Reuters that transferring the required paperwork from the consulate in Toulouse to the Algerian city of Medea meant it could take some time before the body could be flown there. "This is why the procedure will take some time, but I do not know exactly how much time, a week or two maybe," he said, adding: "But my son will be buried in Algeria." Merah, 23, a self-styled Islamist radical, confessed during the police standoff to having shot dead three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children at point-blank range in a spate of attacks that shook France a month from a presidential election. His father has lashed out at French authorities for killing his son rather than arresting him and putting him on trial, and says he wants to sue the French government. Merah's body is currently at a hospital morgue in Toulouse and prosecutors are investigating his elder brother, Abdelkader, for possible complicity in the case.