Gunman Merah Buried in Toulouse

French gunman suspect of killing 7 people in France and was shot by police has been buried in Toulouse.The burial Thursday evening came after days of painful debate about where to bury the body of 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin.The 23-year-old’s father said this week that he wanted his son buried in a family plot in the Medea region of Algeria, but authorities here refused the request. Merah’s body remains unburied a week after his death.Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council said he was buried in the Muslim section of a cemetery in the Toulouse neighborhood of Cornebarrieu.France is still reeling from its worst terror attacks in years.Police say Merah filmed himself killing three schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in a spate of attacks earlier this month. Merah, who espoused radical Islam and said he had links to al-Qaida, was shot in the head after a standoff with police last week in the southern city of Toulouse.His brother is in custody on suspected complicity and police are looking for a potential third man who might have helped.With that plan in mind, Merah’s body was brought to the Toulouse airport Thursday, and his mother had been expecting to accompany it to Algiers on a flight later in the day.But Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council, or CFCM, told The Associated Press that Algerian authorities refused for “reasons of public order.” Zekri had been liaising with authorities at the Algerian consulate in Toulouse.”After Algeria’s refusal at the last minute to accept the body of Mohamed Merah, (Toulouse Mayor) Pierre Cohen feels that his interment on the territory of the city of Toulouse is not appopriate,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.Sarkozy said, “Let him be buried, and let’s not create a debate about this.”Merah’s brother has been handed preliminary charges of alleged complicity in preparing the killings, though his lawyer insists that Abdelkader Merah had no idea what his brother was plotting.Abdelkader Merah told investigators that a third man helped the Merah brothers steal a motorbike used later in the killings, two police officials said Thursday. Merah did not give the name of the other man.Also, police have found a car abandoned in a parking lot in a village in southern France, Saint-Papoul, that belongs to a man registered as living at the same Toulouse address as Mohamed Merah, police officials said. It’s unclear whether the car owner and the alleged motorbike thief are the same person.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named.The shootings were the worst terrorist attacks in France since the 1990s and have revived concerns about homegrown Islamist radicals carrying out violence. Merah traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and said he received weapons training there.French Muslims have worried about a backlash after Merah’s attacks, and French leaders have urged the public not to equate Islam with terrorism.But concerns about radical Islam are high, and the government on Thursday banned a string of international Muslim clerics from entering France for a conference of a fundamentalist Islamic group.Also Thursday, a former nuclear physicist went on trial in Paris on accusations of plotting attacks with the North African wing of Al-Qaida. But his defenders say he only sent some angry emails and fear he may be unfairly linked with the Merah case.