FILE PHOTO -The Paris's courthouse
By Hajer M'tiri
PARIS
A court in Paris Thursday sentenced Abdelkader Merah, the brother of Mohamed Merah, who shot dead seven people in 2012 in the name of Al-Qaeda in southern France, to 20 years in prison.
Abdelkader Merah was found guilty of criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist group but was cleared of complicity in the murders committed by his brother Mohamed.
The public prosecutor Naima Rudloff has requested the maximum sentence for Merah: life imprisonment with 22 years before any possible parole, for knowingly facilitating the killings for his brother.
Abdelkader Merah denied all the charges.
The court also found Fettah Malki guilty of criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist group and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.
Malki had admitted selling a machine gun, ammunition and a bulletproof vest to Mohamed Merah.
Both have 10 days to appeal the verdict.
In March, 2012, Mohamed Merah, a French citizen, killed seven people over the course of a nine-day killing spree. He murdered a rabbi, two of the rabbi's children aged three and five, and an eight-year-old girl in a Jewish school in Toulouse.
He also shot dead three French soldiers in a separate attack in the nearby garrison town of Montauban.
Merah was killed after police mounted a siege of his apartment that lasted more than 30 hours. He was known to French intelligence services for radicalization.
