TOULOUSE, France - The gunman who claimed responsibility for France’s worst terror attacks in years was buried Thursday in a Toulouse cemetery, ending a tortured debate over what to do with the body of a man the president called a “monster.’’
France is still reeling from the killings of three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi, and three paratroopers that revived worries about Islamist extremism and shook up the French presidential campaign.
Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman, was buried in the Muslim section of a cemetery in the Toulouse neighborhood of Cornebarrieu. About 20 men attended the ceremony, hiding their faces from reporters gathered outside.
“It’s all over. We aren’t talking about it anymore. He is in his grave,’’ said Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council.
Those attending the ceremony were mostly young friends of Merah’s from the housing projects where he grew up, Zekri said.
Zekri, who was present for the burial, led protracted negotiations in recent days with Merah’s family, Algerian authorities, and Toulouse authorities over where to bury him.
Merah’s father said that he wanted Mohamed buried in a family plot in Algeria, a solution that seemed to satisfy French officials uncomfortable with the question of what to do with his remains.
But Algerian authorities refused for “reasons of public order,’’ Zekri said.
Plans were made to bury Merah at the Muslim cemetery in Toulouse, but the city’s mayor objected. French President Nicholas Sarkozy intervened.
Merah’s brother is in custody on suspected complicity and police are looking for a potential third man who might have helped.
Also Thursday, a former nuclear physicist went on trial in Paris on accusations of plotting attacks with the North African wing of Al Qaeda. His defenders say he only sent some angry e-mails and fear he may be unfairly linked with the Merah case.
In a separate, apparently unconnected, development, Indonesia’s antiterrorism chief said a French militant is the chief suspect in last week’s blast at Indonesia’s Embassy in Paris.
The suspect is Frederic C. Jean Salvi, who allegedly spent several years studying with Islamic militants in Indonesia, antiterrorism agency chief Ansyaad Mbai said.