French suspect showed no sign of militant leanings
None
Just a few weeks ago, Mohamed Merah partied at a nightclub, and an acquaintance noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Another friend said the former car body shop worker liked to talk about "cars, bikes, girls and sports." On Wednesday, both friends stood stunned near a huge police cordon in a blue-collar neighborhood in the southwestern city of Toulouse, where negotiators were trying to get Merah to surrender.
The 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent was holed up in his apartment after exchanging gunfire with police and suspected of killing three Jewish children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in three separate attacks in southern France. (AP)
