The father of one of the victims of a series of shootings in south-west France in March this year which claimed the lives of three soldiers, a rabbi and three children, says new evidence suggests that the suspected gunman, who was shot dead by police, was used as a double-agent by the French intelligence services and that the authorities have deliberately misled public opinion describing him as a “solitary” terrorist.
In an exclusive interview with Mediapart, Albert Chennouf has accused the former head of the French domestic intelligence agency, Bernard Squarcini, of lying about his agency’s links with the gunman, Mohamed Merah. Chennouf says he believes Merah was killed to prevent him revealing the true nature of his dealings with the agency, and has told Mediapart that his family received death threats after he filed a lawsuit against Squarcini and former president Nicolas Sarkozy for ‘failure to render assistance to persons in danger’.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Merah, 23, died at the end of a 32-hour police siege of his flat in Toulouse, during which he claimed responsibility for the murder spree which he said was in revenge for the deaths of Palestinian children and retaliation for French military intervention in Afghanistan.
The killings began on March 11th, when French paratrooper Imad Ibn-Ziaten, was shot in the head in Toulouse. He had placed an online advert to sell his motorbike, and Merah is thought to have responded to the advert to lure the soldier into a trap.
On March 15th, two parachutists from another regiment - Albert Chennouf’s son Abel and and Mohamed Legouad - were shot dead beside a bank cash point machine in Montauban, a town about 50 kilometres from Toulouse. Another soldier was seriously wounded in the attack by a gunman operating on a scooter.
All three of the murdered French soldiers were from families of North African Arab origin.
Then, on the morning of March 19th, rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his two sons, Gabriel, three, and Aryeh, six, and a seven-year-old girl, Yaakov Monsonégo, were all shot dead at close range outside the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse by a gunman who filmed his crimes on a video camera strung around his neck and who fled on a scooter.
Police identified Merah as the chief suspect on March 20th, after his mother's IP address was discovered as that used to communicate with the first victim, Imad Ibn-Ziaten. When they descended on his Toulouse apartment in the early hours of March 21st, they became involved in a gunfight with Merah that left one officer wounded. A standoff ensued, and during lengthy negotiations Merah spoke of his al-Quaeda training and claimed responsibility for all three attacks.
The siege ended in a shootout on the morning of March 22nd, when officers of the specialist French police commando unit, the RAID, stormed the apartment. Then-French interior minister, Claude Guéant, announced that Merah died in the firefight from a police sniper’s bullet to the head as he jumped out of a window while firing at police.
A search of his apartment found a video camera that had recorded the killings. A huge arsenal of weapons was found in the flat and in cars parked outside.
Despite the subsequent discovery of overwhelming evidence indicating that Merah was, as he had claimed, the gunman in all three shootings, he cannot under French law be tried posthumously.
But three Paris-based magistrates are currently investigating the suspicion that Merah was assigned and helped by a terrorist network. The principle suspect is his 29 year-old brother, Abdelkader Merah, who was arrested on March 21st and who has remained in preventive detention since.
Albert Chennouf, 60, the father of Corporal Abel Chennouf who was shot dead on March 15th in Montauban, is leading a dogged campaign to establish the truth about Merah’s links with the French domestic intelligence service, the DCRI, (Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur). He believes that the French authorities could have prevented the killing spree, and he accuses the DCRI’s former head Squarcini of creating a smokescreen of lies with his repeated claims that Merah was a lone terrorist.
He says secret DCRI documents declassified in August and handed over to the three anti-terrorist judges leading the investigation into suspicions that a terrorist network manipulated Mohamed Merah confirm that the 23 year-old could not have acted alone. The evidence may prove crucial in future legal action against the French authorities for failing to arrest Merah before the shootings began.
Chennouf, a retired commercial director, says the immediate priority must be to establish the precise role of Abdelkader Merah who, questioned by one of the magistrates on September 10th, maintained previous denials that he knowingly helped prepare the attacks.
Beginning on page two here, Albert Chennouf explains in an interview with Mediapart's Louise Fessard why he is certain that Mohamed Merah was a double agent for the French intelligence services, why he believes the highest authorities did not want Merah captured alive, and how Chennouf's family have suffered repeated intimidation during his outspoken campaign for the truth.
Mediapart: Six months after the death of your son, do you have the impression that you understand better how the events, beginning with the murders of the soldiers and then the killings at the Jewish school, could have happened?
Albert Chennouf: We have moved forward a tiny bit. We have obtained the declassification of documents [Editor’s note: secret reports about the surveillance of Mohamed Merah] from the domestic intelligence agency [the DCRI]. We are trying to obtain the same thing from the foreign intelligence services. We have made a request to the Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, for which we’re waiting for a reply. For us these documents are even more important, because they show the ramifications concerning friendly foreign [intelligence] services, which is something that could enlighten us about Mohamed Merah’s background.
Mediapart: Did you talk about this when you met with the French defence minister in July?
A.C.: On July 11th,Jean-Yves Le Drian told us that he would not block our request, which then concerned solely the question of military monitoring. The minister wants the deaths of our children to be recognised as ‘death in line of duty’. We want this to be ‘death in line of duty for France’. The two phrases don’t imply the same thing. The latter would give my grandson, who was born in May after the death of Abel, the status of war orphan, taking care of his studies, and [Abel’s] widow, and so on. ‘Death in the line of duty’ is as if he was the victim of a work accident, it’s not the same thing.
Mediapart: What are you now hoping will come from the opening of a judicial investigation into suspected ‘conspiracy to murder’, ‘gang robbery’ and ‘criminal conspiracy’ with regard to the preparation of terrorist acts?
A.C.: Firstly, our fear, one shared by our lawyers, is that we, the parents of the victims, will be denied a trial. The lawyer for Abdelkader Merah [held in preventive detention since March] wants to get him out. He regards his detention as an imprisonment after a political arrest. We don’t agree at all. It is not a political arrest, it is not a simple ‘handling stolen goods’ [sic]. According to his case file, Abdelkader Merah is accused of ‘integrist group activities’ and ‘long-prepared criminal acts’. Obviously, if it was only a case of handling a stolen scooter, six months of preventive detention would, according to French law, be quite enough.”
Mediapart: What has the investigation established so far concerning the role of Abdelkader Merah in the killings of the three soldiers?
A.C.: There are three parts. Indoctrination, preparation, and his role with the committing of the crimes. Firstly, Abdelkader Merah indoctrinated his brother through trips to Cairo, lessons in Arabic and religious instruction lessons. This Islamist brain washing happened in the full knowledge of the DCRI. The 1,863 phone calls received or made by Mohamed Merah [1] weren’t dialled just to know what the weather was like in Cairo.
Then there are the preparations, demonstrated in the file. Abdelkader Merah’s purchase of a motorbike jacket in a ‘small’ size, whereas he measures 1.85 metres tall. Small doesn’t fit him, why would he have bought this jacket unless it was for his brother who measure 1.65 metres tall and weighs 52 kilos? He took part in the theft of the scooter used by Mohamed Merah, [and] the purchase of walky-talkies. Above all, the first phone call made to Imad Ibn Ziaten [the French soldier who advertised his motorbike for sale and who was murdered in Toulouse on March 11th] came from Abdelkader, who was identified by the owner of the public phone [used].
Then there was the committing of the crimes, his presence during the murders having been proved by mobile phone masts. His mobile phone activated the masts at the sites of the three killings. There was also the meal together before and after the three murders. After the death of Imad Ibn Ziaten, Abdelkader ate with his brother. The same thing after the killings of my son and of Mohamed Legouad, and at the Ozar-Hatorah Jewish school. If only for those three elements, Abdelkader Merah deserves to stay in prison. I want to understand what happened. It is a terrorist enterprise, there were the deaths of seven people, even eight when including Mohamed Merah.
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1: Among declassified secret documents from the DCRI, handed over to the magistrates leading the investigation into the murders this summer, is a report showing that the domestic intelligence services had noted 1,863 phone calls and text messages made by Merah between September 1st 2010 and February 20th 2011. The DCRI report, dated April 26th 2011, recorded that the calls and messages were made to numbers situated in France and 20 other countries around the world, including Bhutan, Bolivia, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the UK. During the period the calls were made, Merah visited several Middle East countries and Afghanistan.
Mediapart: The DCRI and its former head, Bernard Squarcini, have maintained that Mohamed Merah was a solitary person and difficult to detect. The declassified files of the DCRI handed to the investigating magistrates [1] on August 3rd show that, on the contrary, he had links with members of the Salafist movement in Toulouse, and that he had numerous phone conversations with correspondents in Egypt and around the world. What was your reaction to these revelations?
A.C.: From the beginning I said that this boy did not act alone. At 23 years-old, you don’t have the intellectual means, nor physical or moral ones, to take on the logistics alone. This kid had weaponry that was worth 20,000 euros, and two new cars parked outside, full of arms. Me, at 60 years-old, I don’t have more than 5,000 euros in my [bank] account. He was on the RSA [social benefit payment for those earning less than the minimum wage] whereas the law allows it only for those above the age of 25. Someone needs to explain all that to me, because it’s not possible without help.
Mediapart: What do you now think about the statements made by DCRI head Bernard Squarcini who in March 2012 said in an interview with French daily Le Monde that Mohamed Merah was “auto-radicalized”, that he had “no membership of a network” nor “ideological activism” and that he “did not have the outward signs of a fundamentalist” ?
A.C.: “Monsieur Squarcini has got everything wrong, he lied. He thought he’d put us to sleep with his presentation of me in [weekly French news magazine] Le Point as a dad who’d become a bit lost, who spoke under the grip of emotion. But the new documents prove that I was right to file a complaint [3] against him and [former French President] Nicolas Sarkozy. Mohamed Merah was not a lone wolf, while on the other hand Bernard Squarcini was a loyal godfather.”
Mediapart: What do you mean by that?
A.C.: He wanted to send us to sleep with lies, a spooks’ soup. That is why I am waiting for the declassification of the DGSE [foreign intelligence] documents, because we will see the links that French intelligence had with friendly [foreign] services. You don’t enter Israel if you have a stamp on your passport from Syria, and vice versa. I who travel often to Algeria, I know that you can’t enter certain [North African] countries after passing through Israel. I know my accusation is grave. But for me, when Mohamed Merah entered Israel, it’s with the authorization of the DCRI. He was used, he was a double agent. How is it that just a few hours after the killings at the Jewish school, a DCRI agent left two messages on his mobile phone [4]?”
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2: Under the French criminal investigation system, an investigation into serious crime is led by a magistrate who steers the police enquiries. (Occasionally, several magistrates are appointed to the sam case, and there are three in charge of the investigation into the Toulouse and Montauban murders). The magistrate, who also has the title of Judge, decides all the major acts of investigation, in cooperation with the police, and finally concludes whether or not there is sufficient evidence for charges to be brought. Before that final stage, a suspect can be ‘placed under investigation’ – ‘mise en examen’ in French – which is one step short of charges being brought. A suspect ‘placed under investigation’ can be deprived of free movement.
3: Albert Chennouf filed a lawsuit on May 8th, 2012 against Bernard Squarcini and Nicolas Sarkozy (who was French president at the time of the killings) for ‘Failure to render assistance to persons in danger’, (in French: ‘non-assistance à personne en danger’).
4: Mohamed Merah’s mobile phone records have revealed that he received two calls from DCRI agents on March 19th 2012, just hours after the shooting dead of a man and three children at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse. The calls were made at 10.49 a.m. and 12.02 p.m.
Mediapart: Another possible explanation is, more simply, that there was a series of dysfunctions within the French secret services.
A.C.: Incompetence, dysfunctions, inter-agency rivalry, that’s not new, it exists in every country and it’s been happening since General de Gaulle. I was had by the 32-hours wait [during the police siege of Mohamed Merah's home] before, in the end, the killing of Mohamed Merah, I above all don’t want to be had by a story about dysfunctions. If there were dysfunctions, that’s not my business. That’s an internal police problem, let them sort that out, but I don’t want anyone coming along to tell me that my son was killed because of dysfunctions. My son was killed because there was flippancy and carelessness. In this country called France, where ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ is written on the pediments of town halls, there is a duty to safeguard the peaceful existence of its citizens. On that score, they mucked up on every level.
Mediapart: What has happened since you filed a complaint on May 8th against Bernard Squarcini and Nicolas Sarkozy for ‘Failure to render assistance to persons in danger'?
A.C.: There’s no news for the moment. As soon as we filed the complaint, and up to May 20th, we were bombarded with anonymous phone calls, waking us up until 3 in the morning. These were like ‘you’ve had a go at Sarko, we’ll get you’. But I knew I was on the right path. I am a grievously wounded father, but I’m not revengeful or hateful. I don’t want a war, I’m not after Monsieur Sarkozy nor Monsieur Squarcini. But I want the truth. Why did Monsieur Squarcini lie when he told Le Monde that Mohamed was a ‘solitary’ individual, ‘without a network’?
Mediapart: What was yor reaction to the broadcasting in early July by French television channel TF1, and then the publication by Libération, of the conversations between the DCRI’s Toulouse agent and Mohamed Merah during the siege of his apartment?
A.C.: Their contents confirmed what I thought. Everything that I was saying has been proved by the recordings, notably when Mohamed Merah tells the DCRI agents that he had fooled them, and that he had had them by letting them believe he was in Pakistan as a tourist. Who goes for tourism to Pakistan? And do you find it normal that a Minister of the Interior is sent [from Paris] for a case like that when it could have been managed by agents in Toulouse? It’s unprecedented. For me, [interior minister] Claude Guéant was on site to make sure that Mohamed Merah was not taken alive, and so that he doesn’t talk. I always said that the [French police commando group] RAID did its job right up to the last minute. They are ‘soldiers’, they obeyed the orders from politicians.
Mediapart: In the light of the latest documents obtained, do you believe that the domestic intelligence service, which in September 2011 described Mohamed Merah as a ‘privileged target’, had the means to prevent the murders in Toulouse and Montauban?
A.C.: That’s where my disappointment lies. This young man was followed, the dramatic events could have been avoided, and in which there were eight victims when including Loïc Liber [a soldier left paralysed from wounds sustained in the Montauban shootings]. My son had a whole life in front of him, he never saw the birth of his son on May 3rd. Mohamed Merah has destroyed families. We are no longer the same.
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English version: Graham Tearse