Sarkozy: Networks Must Not Show Attack Film

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has demanded that TV networks in France refrain from broadcasting video clips of attacks filmed by the gunman who killed seven people.

Mohammed Merah was killed in Toulouse last week after a 30-hour police siege.

The AFP news agency has reported that investigators believe an accomplice sent a montage of footage to Al Jazeera in Paris on Monday.

The police source told AFP the USB memory stick containing the footage, which was sent along with a note claiming the attacks were linked to al Qaeda, had been posted on Wednesday when Merah was already under siege.

"It's a video montage of the various killings set to music and readings from the Koran," said another source.

Mr Sarkozy said the videos should not be shown "under any pretext", as the tearful mother of a dead Muslim victim pleaded for them not to be shown and the family of a Jewish victim said they would take legal action.

"I call on all managers of all channels not to broadcast them under any pretext, out of respect for the victims and respect for the republic," he said in a speech hailing security forces' handling of the crisis.

Earlier French police said they are searching for a "third man" in connection with the attacks.

Police said they suspect an unidentified individual was also involved in the theft of a scooter that Merah used in his three shooting sprees.

Merah 's brother was arrested as the siege began last week.

And their father has claimed he intends to sue the French state over Mohammed's death.

Mohamed Benalel Merah said: "France is a big country that had the means to take my son alive.

"They could have knocked him out with gas and taken him in. They preferred to kill him.

"I will hire the biggest named lawyers and work for the rest of my life to pay (their) costs. I will sue France for having killed my son."

The package containing the memory drive was dated Wednesday, March 21 - the day that police surrounded Merah in his flat in the southern city of Toulouse, according to a report in the Parisien daily newspaper.

Merah, 23, who was of Algerian descent and was killed in a police siege after attacks on French soldiers and a Jewish school , had previously boasted of filming his killings.

In the first two incidents he shot dead three soldiers in attacks in Toulouse and nearby Montauban.

Then he opened fire at a Jewish school in Toulouse, killing a 30-year-old teacher, his sons aged five and four, and a seven-year-old girl.

Merah also claimed that he had uploaded footage of the attacks to the internet, although no trace of the video has been found.

The gunman's father added that he plans to bury his son in his ancestral homeland of Algeria.