The Arab TV network had received the video on a USB memory stick, as well as an accompanying letter via mail a day earlier.

Original copies were turned over to police, with the network engaging in a lengthy debate as to whether the footage should be aired.

Zied Tarrouche, chief of the network's Paris bureau, said the video showed the killings taking place and was accompanied by music and verses from the Koran.

"We are not a sensationalist channel. We're not looking to broadcast images without weighing the risks and the consequences," Tarrouche had said before Al Jazeera announced it would refrain from airing the footage.

"You can hear gunshots at the moment of the killings. You can hear the voice of this person who has committed these assassinations. You can hear also the cries of the victims, and the voices were distorted," Tarrouche said.

Earlier Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had urged television stations in possession of the footage to refrain from airing it.

"I ask the managers of all television stations that might have these images not to broadcast them in any circumstances," he said in a speech to police officers and judges in Paris on Tuesday. Sarkozy said he was making the appeal "out respect for the victims, out of respect for the Republic."

Mohamed Merah, 23, the man who claimed responsibility for the three shooting incidents that killed three soldiers, three children and a rabbi, apparently filmed the killings with a video camera strapped to his chest. He was killed by police last week after a 32-hour standoff.

Members of the victims' families also joined groups calling on Al Jazeera not to air the video of the killings.

dfm, mz/rc (AP, Reuters)