GRENOBLE, France: French police will today launch a fresh appeal for information they hope will lead to a breakthrough in the probe into the slaying of four people in an Alpine beauty spot.
A month after three members of a British-Iraqi family and a local man were shot dead, investigators remain completely baffled about the identity of the killer and the motive for an extraordinarily brutal attack.
“Everyone is working hard, but there has not been any miraculous discovery that could change the course of the investigation,” admitted Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor in the holiday town of Annecy.
Maillaud is in charge of an investigation aimed at finding the killer or killers of 50-year-old Saad Al Hilli, his wife Iqbal, 47, her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, and Frenchman Sylvain Mollier, 45.
Maillaud revealed that he has been studying pictures taken by the Hillis on September 5 in the hours before the attack, which their two young daughters survived.
“We will be issuing a fresh appeal for witnesses on Saturday. There could be someone who saw something important that could progress the inquiry, whether it was just seeing the family car drive past or other vehicles.
“Even if it is just a matter of allowing us to establish the exact movements of the family, it could help.”
The fact that all four victims had been shot at least twice in the head was initially interpreted as a sign that the killings had been the work of a professional killer.
Maillaud now thinks that theory “less likely.”
“It is hard to imagine a hardened, highly-paid killer firing more than 20 bullets,” he said.
Police found at least 25 cartridges at the scene and sources have said that forensic examination of them indicated they were all fired from one gun—a detail Maillaud has refused to confirm or deny.
Although an exhaustive search of the Hilli house in the London suburbs apparently did not produce anything that could have shed light on a possible motive for the shooting, the French team continue to belileve that something in the family’s background is the most likely explanation.
“No one theory is being given priority, which is not to say the investigation has reached a dead end, quite the contrary,” said Benoit Vinnemann, the senior gendarme on the inquiry team. “There have been new avenues of inquiry that have opened up.”
The investigators have been building up a detailed profile of the assets of the late father of Saad al-Hilli, following suggestions early in the inquiry that a disputed inheritance could be linked to the murder.
AFP
