PARIS, March 26, (Agencies): France will bar radical Muslim preachers from entering the country to participate in an Islamic conference next month as part of a crackdown after shootings by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday.
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,” Sarkozy told France Info radio.

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, Qaradawi is independent of the group but remains close to it. 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 Amir of Qatar himself that this person was not welcome on the territory of the French republic,” Sarkozy said. “He will not come.”

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 inter-community violence”, a Home Office spokeswoman said at the time. The cleric had defended Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel and attacks on US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

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,” Sarkozy 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.

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 runoff.

Far right candidate Marine Le Pen has attempted to link the killings to immigration. “How many Mohamed Merahs, in planes and boats, arrive each day in France?” she asked on Sunday.
Sarkozy said it made no sense to connect the crimes with either immigration or Islam, saying this would only encourage discrimination. He noted that Merah was born and raised in France: “He was simply a monster.”

The president said, however, there were good reasons for curbing immigration, including the strain on France’s generous welfare system and way of life.

Speaking in Corsica at the weekend, Hollande hit back at conservative charges that the Socialists are soft on security, questioning Sarkozy’s own record.

The French island has the highest murder rate in Europe: in 2011, there were 22 murders and attempted murders for 300,000 inhabitants.

“This is a territory exposed to violence and killings for five years, there have been on average 20 murders a year, and (Sarkozy) comes to give us lessons on security?” Hollande said.

Meanwhile, a Frenchman suspected of helping his brother plot attacks against Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers has been handed preliminary murder and terrorism charges.

But Abdelkader Merah denied any role in the attacks. Investigators looking into France’s worst terror attacks in years believe Merah helped his brother Mohamed prepare the killings, and are investigating whether they were linked to an international network of extremists or worked on their own.
Abdelkader’s lawyer said he feels like “a scapegoat.”

“No one knew anything” about what Mohamed was plotting, lawyer Anne-Sophie Laguens told reporters in Paris on Sunday. She dismissed reports that Abdelkader had praised his brother’s attacks. “He was never proud of those actions.”

Mohamed Merah, 23, claimed responsibility for killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers earlier this month. After a 32-hour standoff with police, he died Thursday in a hail of gunfire as he jumped out a window of his apartment in the southern city of Toulouse.

Since then, attention has focused on his older brother Abdelkader Merah, who was handed preliminary charges on Sunday of complicity to murder and theft, and involvement in a terrorist enterprise, prosecutors said. Detained last week, he will remain in custody pending further investigation.
Preliminary charges under French law mean there is strong reason to believe a crime was committed, but allow magistrates more time to investigate.

Authorities suspect Abdelkader had a role in acquiring his younger brother’s arsenal and financing his trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. Mohamed Merah claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda and told police he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan for training.

Abdelkader 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.

Prosecutor Francois Molins said the inquiry is also looking at anyone else who could have been involved in planning the attacks.

The brother’s girlfriend, Yamina Mesbah, was held, then released early Sunday without being charged. The Merah brothers’ mother was released Friday night.

The girlfriend denied any involvement in what happened and said she was shocked by the killings, her lawyer Guy Debuisson said, adding that Abdelkader Merah appeared to have led a double life.

“This woman was unaware of anything about her husband’s accessory, complementary or secret life,” the lawyer said. The couple married according to Muslim custom in 2006, but did not undergo the civil ceremony required in France for a marriage to be recognized.

Abdelkader Merah took five or six long trips to Egypt, ostensibly to study Arabic literature, and his girlfriend joined him on two or three, the lawyer said.

During questioning by police, the lawyer said, Mesbah learned that Merah had had other motivations for his trip to Egypt and “a life that led him toward an extremely intense ... fundamentalism.”

“The question to ask today is if Mohamed was the only one that was indoctrinated. Was it just him or are there others?” Debuisson asked.

The first paratrooper killed, Imad Ibn Ziaten, was buried Sunday in his hometown in Morocco on the Mediterranean coast. Townspeople held French and Moroccan flags as soldiers carried the coffin to the grave.