No Merah link found for now in France hostage case
Jun 21, 2012, 6:42 PM
TOULOUSE, France (AP) – French prosecutors say they haven’t found any links between a gunman who took four Toulouse bank employees hostage and the man suspected of killing seven people in the same city in March.
French special police captured the gunman in Wednesday’s hostage drama after a six-hour standoff. The hostages were released unharmed
Prosecutor Michel Valet told reporters Thursday that at the current stage of the investigation there are “no objective links” between the unidentified gunman and Mohamed Merah, the suspected gunman in the March shootings of three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in the area.
The CIC bank branch targeted Wednesday is in the same neighborhood where Merah was shot and killed by police after a long standoff.
The suspected hostage-taker was being held in a hospital under police surveillance after a medical examination concluded his physical and psychological state “is incompatible with detention.”
The suspect was being treated for gunshot wounds to his left hand and the left thigh. Neither injury was considered life-threatening.
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