Toulouse. 10 years of the Merah attacks: these two miracles that the terrorist, lurking, waited in vain
By Laurent Derne
Published on
No one has forgotten these horror scenes. The ambient chaos. The distress and dread in the eyes bathed in tears of the survivors. The blood in the deserted courtyard.
“I retrieved the USB key from his pocket”
The unbearable vision of a scooter killer disembarking on Monday March 19, 2012, between 7:56 and 7:58 a.m., in Toulouse, on the premises of theJewish School of Toulouse, Ozar Hatorahweapon in hand, Go-pro camera enabledto flood the media around the world with abject images, which no one, in the end, has ever broadcast.
X. is one of the Toulouse investigators to have worked on the case of the attacks on Mohammed Merah. Hers, Montauban, the rose garden. He was on the ground.
“I was the one who ejected the cartridges from his guns. When he was shot down by the RAID, I got the usb drive which he had slipped into his pocket. He had already managed to transmit the images of his crimes to the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera and to France 24. We managed to prevent them from being broadcast. It was negotiated from state to state,” he recalls.
“His initial target was not the Jewish school”
A decade after the events, the wound remains acute for the man. But the investigator, clinical, quickly regains the upper hand.
“It’s probably hard to hear with four dead, including very young children, but fortunately his Uzi submachine gun jammed that day, at the Jewish school, because otherwise it’s 30 to 40 deaths that we would have had…”.
On March 19, 2012, in the Roseraie district, Merah murdered in cold blood, in front of the establishment, jonathan sandlera teacher of 30 yearsand his two sons Aryeh, 5 years oldand Gabriel, 3 years old. In the school yard, he performs Myriam Monsonego, 8 years oldthe director’s daughter, and seriously injures a 15-year-old boy.
The images shot by his GoPro use this tracking
But it is a completely different story that the police officer is telling today. Facts that remain largely unknown to the general public. ‘Merah’s original target that morning was not the Jewish school’. It was actually about soldiersdomiciled at 4and floor of one residence of Croix Dauradeequidistant (5 min) from the massacre sites and his childhood neighborhood of the Izards.
His targets? Two non-commissioned officers of the French Army, UN 29-year-old master corporal and one 27 year old corporalbelonging to the 11and parachute brigade stationed at Balma (Haute-Garonne) that the jihadist had spotted, targeted and who were to join in his eyes the macabre list of their comrades broke the previous days: Imad Ibn Ziaten (killed in Toulouse), Abel Chennouf and Mohamed Legouad (killed at Montauban). But destiny decided otherwise.
He enters the residence with a postman’s pass
The image is chilling, even ten years later. It is taken from the GoPro camera bought in Portet-sur-Garonne that Mohammed Merah turned on during his “expeditions”. The investigation established that the video was shot on March 19, 2012. It makes black night. Which suggests that it is well before 7 am. According to records from the time, the day dawned at 6:59 this sad Monday.
We stand out entrance to a residence. It evokes – in a modern version – the glorious past of the brickyards that popularized the architectural signature of the Pink City. Fifty backlit doorbells tear through the ambient darkness.
The image of the killer is reflected in the mirror
The terrorist breaks through the door using a postman pass. He interferes, cold, methodical. And the image arises, disturbing, reflected by the mirror which lines one of the walls of the common areas. That of a chopped man, dressed in black, dark bag in hand, wearing a white helmet, visor folded down. Mohammed Merah filmed himself from the front before entering the elevator. With his index finger, gloved in black and white, he presses the button leading to 4and and top floor.
Strapped to her chest by a harness, as the elevator mirror reveals in turn, the camera continues to roll. He bends over his bag, pulls out an Uzi submachine gun which he will eventually replace in his original position. This same weapon that he will use a little later in the morning, at the Jewish school.
Lurking behind the trash cans
The GoPro continues its morbid documentation work. A long corridor, it seems narrow – but perhaps this impression is only due to the focal length of the lens – is offered to him. With his right hand, Merah makes the “two” sign, raising the index and middle fingers. No doubt he designates the number of soldiers he has planned to kill. Assumption. He positions himself. End of recording.
UN new video file start, while the terrorist finds the open air. Once through the front door of the residence, he turns to his right, in the direction of the garbage containers. He handles one and repositions it so that he can tapir in ambush. He waits, ready to strike. The darkness protects him for a few more minutes from prying eyes.
Merah goes to plan B
Then day breaks. The camera films a sticker stuck on one of the bins, revealing a partial address. It will allow investigators to find both the famous residence and the very trace of this expeditionon March 22, once the jihadist had been neutralized.
The evening before, two witnesses, intrigued, approach him
March 18, 2012, around 10 p.m. After a pizza party, two friends come across a suspicious individual near a locked cubicle in the basement of a residence on avenue de Grande-Bretagne. He seems embarrassed by their presence. One of the two men lives in this residence. He has never met this young man and notes a “strong smell of solvent and paint” emitted by the box. His friend writes down the license plate of his car, a dark Clio.
But faced with the potential danger of an explosion, they are thrown back in their tracks and decide to approach “this very special guy”. At that time, Mohammed Merah had already killed three soldiers in Toulouse and Montauban, and seriously injured another. His scooter is parked in the box out of sight. A real ticking time bomb. The duo asks him what he is doing here and why this smell of solvent. “He then relaxed and told us that he was a painter, that he had finished late, and that he had brought paint back to his box”. In short, “that there was no need to worry”.
His attitude disarms the friends. “He was courteous, relaxed, without aggression. At no time did I think he was the cold and methodical killer the media were talking about”, testifies one of them heard by the police the day of the assault. Barely ten hours after this strange meeting in the basement, the massacre of the Jewish school…
The “mission” finally aborts. Deprived of his initial targets, Merah goes to plan B. The rest is known. A file of 5 minutes and 28 secondsunbearable, bears witness to the horror of the attack on the Jewish school.
Left… the day before, for the West Indies
When they finally identify the tenants of the Croix Daurade residence, the Toulouse police only manage to get in touch with one of the two. Despite his insistence, they didn’t prefer him the reason for their call. They just want find out if they can audition them, her roommate and him.
Where are they ? Why weren’t they at home that morning of March 19? The 29-year-old master corporal tells them “having left Toulouse for a fortnight”. With his unit, he participated in maneuvers in Auvergne, in the region of Clermont-Ferrand (Puy de Dome). Roommate son? “Went on holiday to the French West Indies on March 18, 2012”. The day before Merah comes. Two miracles.
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