France opens probe into release of recordings of Toulouse killer

French authorities are investigating the leak of recordings of conversations between police and a young man who carried out a terrorist rampage in southern France earlier this year.

French television station TF1 aired audio recordings Sunday night that it said were of Mohamed Merah talking to police during a standoff in March that ended with him being shot dead. Police said Merah espoused radical Islam and killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said Monday it has opened an investigation into the broadcast, which could violate French rules on the privacy of investigations.

The broadcast, in which the suspect describes his trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan and explained why he won’t surrender to police, upset families of victims of the killings.

Mohamed Merah was killed by police after a tense 32-hour standoff outside his apartment in the southern French city of Toulouse. Merah was accused of carrying out a number of deadly shootings, including outside the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in the city.

"Know that in front of you there is a man who is not afraid of death,” he said at one point in the recordings. "My death, I love you like others love life.” (...)