Toulouse siege: blaming killings on immigration controls 'makes no sense', Nicolas Sarkozy says France meanwhile will bar radical Muslim preachers from entering the country to participate in an Islamic conference next month as part of a crackdown following the shootings. Mr Sarkozy, who has announced plans to punish those viewing Islamist web sites and going abroad for indoctrination, said he would block the entry of some imams invited to a congress organised by the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF). The UOIF, one of three Muslim federations in France, is regarded as close to Egypt's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. "I have clearly indicated that there certain people who have been invited to this congress who are not welcome on French soil," Mr Sarkozy said. He cited Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric based in Qatar who is one of the most prominent Sunni Muslim clerics in the Arab world and a household name in the Middle East due to regular appearances on the Al Jazeera news channel. A former member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Qaradawi is independent of the group but remains close to it. Mr Sarkozy said the situation was complicated because the imam holds a diplomatic passport and does not require a visa to enter France. "I indicated to the Emir of Qatar himself that this person was not welcome on the territory of the French republic," Mr Sarkozy said. He will not come. Sheikh Qaradawi was denied a visa to visit Britain in 2008 on grounds of seeking to "justify acts of terrorist violence or disburse views that could foster intercommunity violence," a Home Office spokesman said at the time. The cleric had defended Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel and attacks on US-led coalition forces in Iraq. Mr Sarkozy, campaigning for re-election, rebutted criticism by opposition politicians that the security services blundered in allowing 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, a petty criminal known to have visited Afghanistan twice, to shoot dead seven people in a 10-day rampage in southwest France. Here is a young criminal who suddenly becomes a very active terrorist without any transition. As far as we know there was no cell," he said. The conservative leader announced plans last week to make it a crime to repeatedly consult internet sites advocating Islamic extremism and to punish those who travel overseas for indoctrination or terrorist training. The legislation will have to wait until after a two-round April-May presidential election because the Socialist opposition has resisted an emergency session of parliament to approve them. The killing spree by Merah, who shot dead three Jewish children and four adults before he was killed by police commandos at the end of a 30-hour siege on Thursday, has pushed security to the top of the political agenda. Mr Sarkozy, who made his name as a hardline interior minister, has received a slight popularity bounce but still trails Socialist rival Francois Hollande in polls for a May 6 run-off.