A French teenager who was wounded this week when a self-declared al-Qaeda-linked terrorist attacked a Jewish school is in a critical but stable state three days later, his uncle said Thursday.
"He remains in a critical state but Aaron, who is 15-and-a-half, is young and robust," said Patrick Bijaoui, insisting he remained optimistic.
"He's not in a coma. He's breathing unaided and can speak a little, but the morphine has clouded his consciousness," he said.
Bijaoui said Aaron had received surgery twice on Monday after he was shot in the attack at the Ozar Hatorah school in the southern city of Toulouse, which three younger children and a teacher dead.
The powerful .45 round from the attackers handgun passed through the boy's left arm and then right through his torso, skimming his heart and puncturing his lungs and stomach, the uncle said.
The author of Monday's attack, 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, was killed earlier Thursday by police special forces who raided his Toulouse flat after a 32-hour siege.
"It is a shame that he's dead and won't face justice, but at the same time we're relieved for the rest of the population that he's no longer in a position to harm anyone," Bijaoui said.
Officials said Merah confessed to negotiators during the siege that he was responsible for three shooting attacks in recent days that killed three French paratroopers as well as the victims at the Jewish school.

EJP