The older brother of a French extremist who killed seven people in a series of attacks on a Jewish school and soldiers in 2012 is to go on trial for complicity in the shooting spree. The criminal trial of Abdelkader Merah, 35, starting on Monday, will be the first time a French court considers charges in the attacks that killed three Jewish children, a teacher and three paratroopers in the Toulouse region over a nine-day period.

The 23-year-old gunman, Mohamed Merah, died after a 32-hour televised standoff with France’s police special forces. Abdelkader Merah has been in custody since the days after the Toulouse killings. He has denied helping his brother, who trained with al-Qaida-linked extremists in Pakistan, to prepare for or perpetuate the rampage.

His lawyer, Eric Dupond-Moretti, has said Merah, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of “complicity to murders in relation with a terrorist undertaking”, was sent to trial by default because the actual killer was dead. “There is no evidence in the case file to convict him. That’s what I think, that’s what I’ll say,” Dupond-Moretti told BFM TV in February. The lawyer refused to give interviews as the trial neared. The trial is being held in a special Paris criminal court and heard by judges. It is expected to last a month with about 50 witnesses and a dozen experts called to the stand. A verdict is expected in early November.(Theguardian)…[+]

The US president, Donald Trump, has dedicated a golf trophy to the hurricane victims of Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, amid a worsening war of words between him and the mayor of Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan, over the US response to the disasters.

Presenting the trophy to the US captain, Steve Stricker, at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in New Jersey, Trump said: “On behalf of all of the people of Texas, and all of the people – if you look today and see what is happening, how horrible it is, but we have it under really great control – Puerto Rico and the people of Florida who have really suffered over this last short period of time with the hurricanes, I want to just remember them. “And we’re going to dedicate this trophy to all of those people that went through so much that we love, a part of our great state, really a part of our great nation.” Trump tweeted a video of him presenting the trophy later on Sunday.(Theguardian)…[+]

The UK’s biggest peacetime repatriation is under way after the collapse of Monarch Airlines, with 110,000 customers to be brought home on specially chartered planes. The accountants KPMG announced at 4am on Monday that Monarch, Britain’s longest-surviving airline brand, had been placed into administration and that all further flights from the UK had been cancelled and would not be rescheduled.

The Civil Aviation Authority said it had launched a programme to bring back Monarch customers to the UK over the next fortnight on 34 chartered planes. All Monarch customers who were due to return to the UK in the next two weeks would be flown home at no extra cost and did not need to cut short their stay, the regulator said. However, 300,000 future bookings had been cancelled. Hundreds of passengers flying early on Monday arrived at UK airports to find their flights cancelled, some just minutes before they were due to board, leaving their plans in tatters. The CAA chief executive, Andrew Haines, said: “This is the biggest UK airline ever to cease trading, so the government has asked the CAA to support Monarch customers currently abroad to get back to the UK at the end of their holiday at no extra cost to them.(Theguardian)…[+]