Toulouse Killer Dies as French Police Seige Ends
World | March 22, 2012, Thursday // 13:40| viewsFrench emergency services at the scene following a raid on a house to arrest an al-Qaeda-linked suspect in a string of deadly shootings in Toulouse, France on March 2012. Photo by EPA/BGNES
The man suspected of murdering seven people had been killed by police in the French city of Toulouse, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant reported Thursday.
According to BBC, the more-than-day-long siege ended around 9:30 am, when police officers entered the apartment where Mohammed Merah, 23, had barricaded himself
Gueant informed officers had thrown grenades and entered by the door and windows of the apartment. After surveying the scene and finding no sign of the suspect, they proceeded to the bathroom. Merah had been hiding there, but came out when the special force entered, and opened fire with three officers reported wounded in the final assault. He jumped from a window, continuing to fire and was later found dead on the ground.
Gueant said earlier that it was unclear whether Merah was still alive, because there had been no contact overnight.
The young man with Algerian roots was wanted in the killings of three French paratroopers and of three students and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse, in a string of shootings that began on March 11. He opened fire on police as they tried to break down his apartment door about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, wounding another two officers.
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