As far as fascinating reads go, this one is bound to be right up there: The brother of the French terrorist responsible for the Toulouse and Montauban killings earlier this year tells of his family’s hatred and racism towards Jews in his new book.

Abdelghani Merah, brother of Islamist terrorist Mohamed Merah, has co-written “My Brother, the terrorist” with journalist Mohamed Sifaoui, available from Wednesday.

Extracts of the book have been published by French news websites over the weekend including left-wing daily, Liberation. Speaking about Mohamed in the book, Abdelghani vows to “explain how my parents raised you in an atmosphere of racism and hatred before the Salafists do not you swim in religious extremism [sic]”.

According to the book, Mohamed’s sister, Souad, and elder brother, Abdelkadar, never made any secret of their support of Islamic fundamentalism and became central figures of Salafism in Toulouse. The author says their ideas became more extreme from their time watching videos of terrorist actions in which they tried to indoctrinate all members of the family.

The eight-day shooting spree by Mohamed in southwest France which left a rabbi, three children, and three paratroopers dead in March this year was preceded by years of extreme religious indoctrination by his family, Abdelghani says.

In an exclusive interview aired yesterday evening with France’s M6 television, Abdelghani told the network this his mother was ultimately responsible for the “culture” of anti-Semitism and she always said , “We the Arabs, we were born to hate Jews” and “this speech” he says, he heard “throughout my childhood”.

In an interview with Liberation, Abdelghani thinks that his elder brother Kadar probably knew of Mohamed’s intentions. “My brother lived in a family that predestined him at best to delinquency and at worst to terrorism. We were programmed to become outlaws”, he said. Denouncing the crimes committed by his brother, the hatred in which he was raised and by his brother’s Salafists friends, Abdelghani remarked, “I am the brother of the killer, but I stand with the victims”.