France shootings: Police quiz Merah's 'proud' brother

Anti-terrorist police in Paris are questioning a brother of Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah to determine if he played any part in deadly attacks.

Abdelkader Merah was flown to Paris from Toulouse along with his partner and taken to the headquarters of the domestic intelligence agency (DCRI).

Mohamed Merah admitted killing seven people in execution-style gun attacks before dying in a police siege.

Abdelkader reportedly told police after the attacks he was "proud" of him.

His mother was released without charge on Friday evening.

Investigators are trying to establish if Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian descent, acted alone.

Crucial questions include how Merah, a petty criminal, was able to amass an arsenal of weapons and rent a car without any clear source of income.

He reportedly told police during the siege he had bought weapons for 20,000 euros (£16,700; $24,400) using money taken through break-ins and hold-ups.

Merah, who described himself as an al-Qaeda member, carried out three attacks, killing three soldiers before shooting dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school.

He recorded the shootings on a video camera strapped to his body.

Abdelkader Merah, 29, and his unnamed partner - said variously to be his wife or girlfriend - were detained earlier this week.

Police and prosecutors have said Abdelkader is a radical Islamist and that traces of what could be an explosive material were found in his car, the French news agency AFP reports.

This video footage shows the inside of Merah's apartment

He was questioned several years ago about alleged links to a network sending Toulouse-area youths to Iraq, but no action was brought against him at the time, police sources say.

After his detention in Toulouse on Wednesday, he told police he was "proud" of his brother's actions, police sources say.

Police union spokesman Christophe Crepin told reporters detectives had already gathered evidence to suggest that Abdelkader had helped his brother carry out the shootings.

There was evidence to suggest that Abdelkader Merah had "furnished means [and] worked as an accomplice", said Mr Crepin.

Under French law, if either the brother or his partner are held beyond the weekend, preliminary charges will have to be filed, the Associated Press news agency says.

A lawyer for the gunman's mother, 55-year-old Zoulika Aziri, said his client's world had been "turned upside down".

"She is devastated," Jean-Yves Gougnaud told reporters in Toulouse.

"At no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it."

French officials have strongly defended police tactics during the siege which ended with Merah being shot dead as he fired on officers.

The technical means are very advanced but they do not replace human sources”

But the operation by RAID police commandos, in which five officers were hurt, has been sharply criticised by anti-terror experts in France and Israel.

Christian Prouteau, founder of the French gendarmerie's GIGN unit in the 1980s, said the use of tear gas might have helped capture Merah alive.

"How can it be that the top police unit fails to capture a man who is alone?" Mr Prouteau told regional daily Ouest France.

"They should have pumped him with tear gas. He wouldn't have lasted five minutes."

Former Israeli commando officer Uri Bar-Lev wrote in Israeli newspaper Maariv: "This is not how a professional unit to combat terror behaves."

Alec Ron, a former head of Israel's police commando unit, told Israeli radio the operation appeared to have been characterised by "utter confusion and unprofessionalism".