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The older brother of a French extremist who killed seven people in a series of attacks on a Jewish school and soldiers goes on trial for complicity in the 2012 shooting spree.

Monday's criminal trial of 35-year-old Abdelkader Merah will be the first time a French court considers charges in the attacks that took the lives of three Jewish children, a teacher and three paratroopers, over nine days in the Toulouse region.

The gunman, 23-year-old Mohammed Merah died after a 32-hour televised standoff with France's police special forces. Abdelkader Merah has denied helping his brother prepare for or perpetuate his deadly rampage.

Defense lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti says the older Merah was charged with complicity to terror and sent to trial "by default" because the actual killer was dead.