(JTA) — The gunman who killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse was buried in France rather than Algeria as his father had requested.
Mohammed Merah was buried Thursday afternoon in a cemetery on the outskirts of Toulouse, despite objections from the city’s mayor.
Algerian authorities refused to allow Merah’s body to enter the country for burial, Reuters reported, citing an official at the Grand Mosque of Paris.
The mayor of the Algerian village of Bezzaz reportedly citied security reasons for declining the request, according to Reuters. Merah is a French citizen of Algerian origin.
He was killed by police after a 30-hour siege at his Toulouse home. During the siege, Merah told French police that he killed the Jewish students at the Ozar Hatorah school in revenge for Palestinian children killed in Gaza, and had killed three French soldiers the previous week for serving in Afghanistan.
