(24 Mar 2012) 1. Mid of Jean-Yves Gougnaud, lawyer for the mother of Mohamed Merah, surrounded by media 2. Wide of building, pan to Gougnaud 3. SOUNDBITE (French) Jean-Yves Gougnaud, lawyer for Zoulihka Aziri, mother of Mohamed Merah: "Last Wednesday, her world was turned upside down. She is devastated. As I said, at no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it. She was even telling people around her to protect their kids, to watch them. She is really a caring person, she is extremely kind, and, as I said, in this case she really cooperated from the start. She also needs an explanation. She needs to know if she could have prevented it." 4. Mid of Gougnaud speaking to journalist 3. SOUNDBITE (French) Jean-Yves Gougnaud, lawyer for Zoulihka Aziri, mother of Mohamed Merah: (Reporter: Why didn't she want to speak to him when the police were negotiating?) "She had had no contact with her son for a very long time and knew that he wouldn't listen to her and that it wouldn't help." 4. Mid of Gougnaud with journalists STORYLINE: The lawyer for the mother of the Frenchman accused of killing seven people in a series of shootings said her world has been turned upside down by the devastating events earlier in the week. Jean-Yves Gougnaud, Zoulika Aziri's lawyer, told journalists on Saturday that "at no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it. She was even telling people around her to protect their kids, to watch them. She is really a caring person, she is extremely kind, and, as I said in this case, she really cooperated from the start." Aziri was released without charge, a judicial official said on Saturday after being questioned by police concerning her son's killing sprees. She was freed late on Friday, the official said on condition of anonymity because the information wasn't cleared for public release. Aziri's son, Mohamed Merah, is blamed for a series of deadly shootings which have shocked France and upended the country's presidential race. Merah, who claimed allegiance to al-Qaida, died in a hail of gunfire on Thursday after a dramatic 32-hour standoff with police in Toulouse. He had filmed himself carrying out attacks in southern France that began on March 11 and killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers with close-range shots to the head, prosecutors say. Another Jewish student and a paratrooper were wounded. Gougnaud said that Merah's mother "needs an explanation. She needs to know if she could have prevented it." One reporter asked Gougnaud why Aziri didn't speak to her son during police negotiations. "She had had no contact with her son for a very long time and knew that he wouldn't listen to her and that it wouldn't help," was Gougnaud's response. Investigators are trying to figure out whether the Frenchman, who is of Algerian descent, acted alone, and his older brother Abdelkader Merah, along with Abdelkader's girlfriend, remain in police custody in Paris. Key questions include how Mohamed Merah, described by French intelligence boss Ange Mancini as "a little failure from the suburbs," was able to amass an arsenal of weapons, including an Uzi sub-machinegun, and rent a car, despite having no clear source of income. Merah had claimed that neither his mother nor his brother knew of his plans, but police union spokesman Michel Crepin told reporters that detectives have already gathered evidence to suggest that Abdelkader may have helped his brother carry out the shootings. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/25e650f5f16bc76d0dfbe9cca803284b

• published: 30 Jul 2015
• views: 156