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Toulouse and Montauban shootings

SOLVED2012Toulouse and Montauban, Midi-Pyrénées, France3 SOURCESUPDATED JUL 2026
File:Toulouse - Drapeaux en bernes place du Capitole - 2012-03-22.jpg
File:Toulouse - Drapeaux en bernes place du Capitole - 2012-03-22.jpg — Credit: PierreSelim · CC BY-SA 3.0

Between 11 and 19 March 2012, a series of shooting attacks struck the French cities of Toulouse and Montauban, in the Midi-Pyrénées region, killing seven people and wounding eleven more. French investigators identified Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian descent who was born and raised in Toulouse, as the gunman behind all three attacks. In each case, witnesses described a helmeted rider arriving and leaving on the same scooter, which was later found to have been stolen, and investigators determined that the same .45 pistol and a 9mm pistol were used throughout.

The first attack came on 11 March, when Master Sergeant Imad Ibn-Ziaten, a 30-year-old off-duty paratrooper, was shot in the head at point-blank range outside a school in southeast Toulouse; investigators concluded the gunman had arranged to meet him under the pretext of buying his motorcycle. On 15 March, in Montauban, about 50 km north of Toulouse, two uniformed soldiers — 25-year-old Corporal Abdel Chennouf and 23-year-old Private Mohamed Legouad — were shot and killed, and a third, 27-year-old Loïc Liber, was seriously wounded and left tetraplegic, as the three withdrew cash from an ATM outside a shopping centre. On 19 March, the gunman rode up to the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse and opened fire in the schoolyard, killing 30-year-old rabbi and teacher Jonathan Sandler and Sandler's two young sons, 5-year-old Arié and 3-year-old Gabriel, as Sandler tried to shield them. Inside the school, he chased down 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego, the head teacher's daughter, and shot her at point-blank range after his first gun jammed; 17-year-old student Bryan Bijaoui was also shot and gravely injured.

Police initially suspected neo-Nazi involvement because of the victims' ethnic and religious backgrounds, and Merah — who had not previously drawn significant police attention — was not identified until investigators traced the stolen scooter and a motorcycle mechanic reported his attempt to remove a GPS tracking device. Merah said he carried out the attacks because of France's military role in Afghanistan and its ban on Islamic face veils, and that he targeted the Jewish school because, in his words, "the Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine"; he claimed affiliation with al-Qaeda, though French authorities said they found no evidence to substantiate it. On 22 March, police surrounded Merah's rented apartment in Toulouse's Côte Pavée neighbourhood; an hour earlier, Merah had called French television channel France 24 and told an editor there that his acts were intended to "uphold the honour of Islam." During the roughly 30-hour siege that followed, Merah exchanged gunfire with police, wounding several officers, and told negotiators he would not surrender without a fight. When a tactical unit entered the apartment on the morning of 22 March, Merah emerged firing and was shot dead by a police sniper after jumping from a window.

Merah's brother, Abdelkader Merah, was detained after the siege on preliminary charges of complicity in murder and terrorist conspiracy. In 2017, Abdelkader Merah and a second man, Fettah Malki, were found guilty of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy connected to the attacks; Abdelkader Merah was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Fettah Malki to 14 years. The attacks led France to raise its Vigipirate terrorism alert to its highest level in the Midi-Pyrénées region and surrounding departments, drew condemnation from the United Nations and the French Council of the Muslim Faith, and were followed by a documented rise in antisemitic incidents: France's Jewish community monitoring group recorded 148 antisemitic incidents in March and April 2012, of which 43 were classified as violent.

Key facts

Victims
Gabriel Sandler, Loïc Liber, Bryan Bijaoui, Mohamed Legouad, Jonathan Sandler, Imad Ibn-Ziaten, Myriam Monsonego, Abdel Chennouf, Arié Sandler
Date
2012
Location
Toulouse and Montauban, Midi-Pyrénées, France
Case status
solved

Case timeline

  1. 2012-03-11

    Mohammed Merah, identified by police as the gunman, shot and killed off-duty paratrooper Imad Ibn-Ziaten at point-blank range outside a school in southeast Toulouse.

  2. 2012-03-15

    Merah shot three off-duty soldiers withdrawing cash in Montauban, killing Corporal Abdel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad and seriously wounding Loïc Liber, who was left tetraplegic.

  3. 2012-03-19

    Merah opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, killing rabbi and teacher Jonathan Sandler, Sandler's sons Arié (5) and Gabriel (3), and 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego; 17-year-old Bryan Bijaoui was gravely wounded.

  4. 2012-03-22

    After a roughly 30-hour siege at his Toulouse apartment, Merah was shot dead by a police sniper as he emerged from the building firing at officers.

  5. 2017

    Abdelkader Merah was found guilty of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy and sentenced to 20 years in prison; Fettah Malki was convicted of the same offence and sentenced to 14 years.

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People

  • Gabriel Sandler

    VICTIM

    3-year-old son of Jonathan Sandler; shot and killed alongside his father and brother outside the Ozar Hatorah school on 19 March 2012.

  • Loïc Liber

    VICTIM

    27-year-old soldier seriously wounded and left tetraplegic in the 15 March 2012 Montauban shooting that killed two of his fellow soldiers.

  • Bryan Bijaoui

    VICTIM

    17-year-old student shot and gravely injured during the 19 March 2012 attack on the Ozar Hatorah school.

  • Mohamed Legouad

    VICTIM

    23-year-old Private in the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment; shot and killed alongside Corporal Abdel Chennouf in Montauban on 15 March 2012.

  • Mohammed Merah

    CHARGED

    23-year-old French citizen of Algerian descent, born and raised in Toulouse; publicly identified by French police and the French president as the gunman responsible for all three attacks. Killed by a police sniper on 22 March 2012 during a roughly 30-hour siege at his apartment, before any formal charge or trial is documented in the available source.

  • Fettah Malki

    CONVICTED

    Found guilty in 2017, alongside Abdelkader Merah, of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy connected to the attacks; sentenced to 14 years in jail.

  • Jonathan Sandler

    VICTIM

    30-year-old rabbi and teacher at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse; shot and killed outside the school gates on 19 March 2012 while trying to shield his two young sons.

  • Imad Ibn-Ziaten

    VICTIM

    30-year-old off-duty French Moroccan paratrooper in the 1st Parachute Logistics Regiment; shot in the head at point-blank range outside a school in southeast Toulouse on 11 March 2012, the first of the three attacks.

  • Abdelkader Merah

    CONVICTED

    Mohammed Merah's brother; detained after the siege on preliminary charges of complicity in murder and terrorist conspiracy. Found guilty in 2017 of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy connected to the attacks and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

  • Myriam Monsonego

    VICTIM

    8-year-old daughter of the Ozar Hatorah school's head teacher; chased into the courtyard and shot at point-blank range on 19 March 2012 after the gunman's first weapon jammed.

  • Abdel Chennouf

    VICTIM

    25-year-old Corporal in the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment; shot and killed while withdrawing cash from an ATM in Montauban on 15 March 2012.

  • Arié Sandler

    VICTIM

    5-year-old son of Jonathan Sandler; shot and killed alongside his father outside the Ozar Hatorah school on 19 March 2012.

Roles reflect public records and court outcomes at the time of writing — supporting citations are on file under Sources.

Archival records

  • File:Toulouse - Drapeaux en bernes place du Capitole - 2012-03-22.jpg

    crime scene press

    File:Toulouse - Drapeaux en bernes place du Capitole - 2012-03-22.jpg

    Credit: PierreSelim · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source

Places

Toulouse and Montauban, Midi-Pyrénées, France

43.6047, 1.4442

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Common questions

What happened to the victim?
Over eleven days in March 2012, Mohammed Merah carried out three shooting attacks in Toulouse and Montauban, France — killing three off-duty French soldiers, then a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school — before he was shot dead by police after a 30-hour siege; his brother and an associate were convicted in 2017 of aiding the attacks.
Where did the shootings happen?
Toulouse and Montauban, Midi-Pyrénées, France.
Who was convicted?
Fettah Malki (Found guilty in 2017, alongside Abdelkader Merah, of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy connected to the attacks; sentenced to 14 years in jail.) and Abdelkader Merah (Mohammed Merah's brother; detained after the siege on preliminary charges of complicity in murder and terrorist conspiracy. Found guilty in 2017 of taking part in a criminal terrorist conspiracy connected to the attacks and sentenced to 20 years in prison.).
What is the current status of the case?
Status: solved.
More cases in France

Sources

  1. ENCYCLOPEDICToulouse and Montauban shootingsWikipedia · 2026-07-12
  2. PRESSContemporaneous coverage — BBC NewsBBC News · 2026-07-12
  3. PRESSContemporaneous coverage — The TelegraphThe Telegraph · 2026-07-12

Record history

First published
JUL 13, 2026

  1. JUL 13, 2026Correction

    Catalog QA: moved to the archive tier without removing the public dossier.