Toulouse gunman was informant of French intelligence?

Russia Today

An undated and non-datelined frame grab from
a video broadcast March 21, 2012 by French national
television station France 2 who they claim to
show Mohamed Merah

Mohamed Merah, the notorious killer shot in a stand-off with police a week ago in Toulouse, is still stirring controversy in France. An ex-chief of the French spy agency says Merah might have acted as an informant to the local equivalent of the FBI.

­The speculation comes as Yves Bonnet, a former intelligence chief, says Merah might have passed information onto the DCRI, a French domestic intelligence agency.

“He was known to the DCRI, not especially because he was an Islamist, but because he had a correspondent in domestic intelligence,” Bonnet told La Dépêce newspaper on Monday.

“When you have a correspondent, it’s not completely innocent,” he remarked.

On Tuesday the assumption, worthy of a huge scandal, was rebuffed by DCRI head Bernard Squarcini.

Merah was indeed interviewed by a local intelligence agent in November 2011, Squarcini said, but this was because the agency “wanted to receive explanations about his trip to Afghanistan.”

As Merah stated he went to Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 as a tourist, he was let go but placed on a watch list. Merah “did not serve as an informant to the DCRI or any other French intelligence service,” stressed the DCRI head.

Previously, French officials said “no evidence” indicated that Merah was linked to terror groups or that the shooting spree, which took the lives of seven people in Toulouse earlier this month, was ordered by al-Qaeda.

Toulouse Murders: Story Evolves from 'Backlash' to 'Racism'

Toulouse Fallout 'Plays Into Sarkozy's Hands'

Der Spiegel

Following the death of the Toulouse terror suspect on Thursday, attention is now turning to what his crimes will mean for France's future. With a presidential election just weeks away, candidates managed a dignified sense of national unity during the crisis. But German commentators say that could quickly change.

It took just days for French police to track down Mohamed Merah, the 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent responsible for killing seven people in southern France over the past week, including three children at a Jewish school.

Conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been struggling against his Socialist Party contender in the presidential election, has been praised for the quick success in detecting and stopping Merah as well as the statesmen-like behavior he has shown so far -- with his appearances at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, at the coffins of the victims before they were transferred to Israel, at the hospital beds of injured police and at the memorial ceremony for the murdered soldiers. Observers say that, instead of the biting and hyperactive Sarkozy many had experienced during the election campaign, in recent days they have seen a dignified man worthy of the country's highest office.

Sarkozy's success culminated on Thursday, when police ended the siege at the apartment where Merah had been holed up for 30 hours. With his death, many are asking what impact the attacks by an apparent homegrown terrorist will have on the presidential election, with the first round of voting just one month away. Will Sarkozy get a bump in the polls for his swift response? Will Socialist Party candidate François Hollande suffer because he was unable to present himself in the same role that Sarkozy could as president? Or will far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has run a campaign filled with anti-Muslim sentiment, get a boost from the terrible crimes?

Initially, Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, had remained silent over the attacks, but on Thursday the candidate lashed out at Sarkozy, saying it had been a "luxury" for police to wait 30 hours before storming Merah's apartment. Le Pen also criticized the fact that the authorities had failed to stop Merah before he acted, given that he had already been prosecuted several times.