Samuel Sandler, whose son and grandchildren were murdered by Mohamed Merah, arriving at the original trial of Abdelkader Merah. Photo: Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes.

The brother of the Islamist terrorist whose 2012 trail of slaughter in the Toulouse region of France included a gun attack on a Jewish school was sentenced to 30 years in jail on Thursday.

The Paris court of appeals found Abdelkader Merah guilty of complicity in the seven murders committed by his brother, Mohamed, in and around the city of Toulouse in March 2012.

During a 10-day killing spree, Merah — a terrorist who trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan — shot dead three French soldiers and wounded one more. On March 19, Merah arrived at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse and murdered Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, who taught at the institution, together with his two sons, six-year-old Aryeh and three-year-old Gabriel. Merah then grabbed another child, eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego, and shot her through the head before escaping.

Following a 30-hour siege at his apartment building in which six agents were wounded, Merah was shot dead by a police tactical unit on March 22.

French media reported that sobs broke out among the relatives of Merah’s victims in the public gallery when Abdelkader’s sentence was read out.

Sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2017 when he was found guilty of criminal terrorist conspiracy, Abdelkader Merah was found not guilty of complicity in his younger brother’s murders. Thursday’s  revised verdict marked the success of the appeal by state prosecutors representing the victims’ families, who argued that the original sentence was too lenient.

The court deemed that Abdelkader Merah was guilty of having links to a terrorist group, as well as complicity in Mohamed Merah’s attacks.