Man arrested over British family murder in French Alps

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Man arrested over British family murder in French Alps

A police officer stands by a cordon close to the house of Saad al-Hilli and his family in Claygate near London September 13 2012. Credit: Reuters/Luke MacGregor

LONDON | Mon Jun 24, 2013 6:44am EDT

(Reuters) - Police in Britain have arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to murder a British family of Iraqi origin who were killed in a high-profile murder in southern France last year.

"The 54-year-old man was detained at an address in Chessington, Surrey at around 7:30am (2:30 am EST) and is currently in police custody where he will be interviewed," police said in a statement. There were no further details of the suspect.

Husband and wife Saad and Ikbal Al-Hilli, also from the county of Surrey, southwest of London, were killed in September 2012, along with Ikbal's mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, prompting a joint murder investigation between British and French authorities.

A French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, was also found dead near the scene.

The killings happened on a remote mountain road near the French town of Annecy, close to the Swiss and Italian borders.

The pair's four-year old daughter survived the attack, spending several hours cowered among the bodies of her dead parents and grandmother.

(Reporting By Costas Pitas; editing by Stephen Addison)

 

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Brother of victim held in UK over French Alps murders

Posted by: AFP Posted date : June 24, 2013 at 12:05 pm

LONDON (AFP)

French investigators said on Monday that the brother of a British-Iraqi man shot dead with three other people in the French Alps last year has been arrested in Britain in connection with the murders.

Zaid al-Hilli, 54, was arrested in Surrey, near London on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

His brother Saad al-Hilli, Saad’s wife Iqbal and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf were shot dead in the family’s BMW estate car at a beauty spot near Lake Annecy on September 5 last year.

The couple’s two young daughters survived the shooting, one of them by huddling next to her dead mother’s body for hours until police found her.

A French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, was also shot dead, but investigators believe he was not a target and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“We felt there were enough reasons to take him into custody,” Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud told AFP after British police announced Zaid al-Hilli’s arrest.

“We need to ask him questions about his schedule, his relationship with his brother and the family inheritance.”

British police said they had arrested a 54-year-old man in connection with the murders in an early-morning “pre-planned arrest” in Surrey, where the al-Hilli family lived, but did not officially name him.

Surrey police said: “The 54-year-old man was detained at an address in Chessington, Surrey, at around 7.30 am and is currently in police custody where he will be interviewed.”

Earlier this month Maillaud revealed that police were looking into telephone calls to Romania made from Zaid al-Hilli’s phone.

Maillaud said Romanian authorities had been asked to help establish who he was calling, but stressed on that occasion that the potential Romania link was not being treated as a major new lead.

 

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