The al-Jazeera TV channel has decided not to air video material of the attacks carried out by Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah.
Officials at the Qatar-based channel announced the decision after a plea by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Merah filmed himself killing seven people, including Jewish children and unarmed soldiers, before he was shot dead after a 32-hour siege on Thursday.
Police believe the video was posted by an accomplice.
Commenting on its decision, al-Jazeera said: “The Paris bureau received a video from an anonymous source [on Monday] entitled “Al-Qaeda attaque la France” (Al-Qaeda attacks France) that appears to show the recent killings in Toulouse and Montauban.
“Given its contents, we immediately passed the video on to the French police as we were duty bound to do and they are conducting their investigation.
“In accordance with al-Jazeera’s code of ethics, given the video does not add any information that is not already in the public domain, its news channels will not be broadcasting any of its contents.”
Al-Jazeera said it had received numerous requests from media outlets for copies of the video but had rejected all of them.
A USB memory stick containing the footage, sent along with a note claiming the attacks in the name al-Qaeda, was posted last Wednesday, when Merah was already under siege.
It was posted from “outside Toulouse”, a police source told Agence France-Presse.
Earlier, al-Jazeera Paris bureau chief, Zied Tarrouche, confirmed he had watched the video and it showed all of the killings.
“You hear the voice of the person who carried out the killings,” he told French channel BFM TV.
“You also hear the victims’ cries. My feelings are those of any human being who sees horrible things.”
Mr Tarrouche said he had to weigh up “the risks and the consequences” of airing the video, but he added: “We are not a sensational network.”
Mr Sarkozy had urged media not to show the footage.
“I ask of those in charge of all the TV channels in possession of these images not to broadcast the images under any pretext out of respect for the victims and out of respect for the republic,” he said.
Relatives of the dead echoed his plea.
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4 Responses
Shame, they only show the world edited footage of IDF defending themselvs, but when its arab terrorists they refuse to show the world the reality.
on the other hand what ever the motives are
as far as the families are concerned they are against this being made public, you must take into acct their feelings imagine how this can haunt them for the rest of their lives!
“In accordance with al-Jazeera’s code of ethics etc”
Is that like in accordance with Nazi code humanitarianism?
Just askin . . .
Number 1 your comments lack even an iota of merit. Al Jazeera did the correct and proper thing. Credit to them.