Toulouse shootings: Algeria refuses to take gunman Mohamed Merah's body Burying Mohamed Merah is a sensitive issue for both his native France and his father's native Algeria. Photograph: France 2/EPA The family of a gunman who killed seven people in southern France were searching on Thursday for a place to bury him after Algeria refused to take his body. Merah claimed responsibility for a spate of terror attacks that left three schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers dead. Merah, who said he had links to al-Qaida, was killed last week in a gunfight with police. Merah's body was brought to Toulouse airport on 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 said the Algerian authorities refused to take the body for "reasons of public order." Zekri had been liaising with Algerian authorities in Toulouse, and said he was working with the family to find a solution for the funeral ceremony. Merah's father is from Algeria and said he wanted his son buried with relatives there.