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Europe

French Alps murders: Is there an Iraq connection?

2012-09-07

[Christian Science Monitor] French investigators struggled Thursday to explain how a 4-year-old girl could go undetected for eight hours in a car with three bodies in the French Alps.

They also acknowledged that they still don't know why a family of vacationers with British and Swiss passports were slain in a BMW on a remote mountain road near the French village of Chevaline. A French cyclist, possibly riding by at the time, was also killed.

The attacker or attackers violently beat and shot the girl's sister, who is about 7 years old, French prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters in nearby Annecy. The girl was found near the car and hospitalized. She will be operated on but her life is out of danger, he said.

French authorities were not releasing the identities of the victims, but said the car was registered to a man with a British passport, who was born in Baghdad in 1962. A Swedish passport and Iraqi passport were also found at the scene, Maillaud said.

Four people were found dead on the remote road: one adult man in the driver's seat of the British-registered BMW; two women in the back seat, one older than the other; and a French male cyclist, Sylvian Mollier, who appeared to have nothing to do with the family.

The bodies were found Wednesday by a British former air force officer who was cycling by, the prosecutor said.

A number of rescuers -- firefighters, medical workers, police -- apparently eyed the crime scene after it was reported about 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Local officials then waited for special investigators to arrive, police said.

Posted by:Fred

#16 I'll set aside the citizenship of the hitmen for a minute. I decided to go back and think harder about the comment from Besoeker. Why would one of the victims in the family be shot - but not dead, while there were professional kills on the main targets (the parents)? I've got a possible answer.

First, it's very likely that the hit team consisted of 2 or 3 people. One was experienced with assassination - that was the main shooter who did the killings. There may have been a second shooter, less experienced. And possibly a third person who was the driver.

Let's suppose they started with the hit. And in the middle of the kill, an unknown cyclist comes round a bend and discovers what's happening. The cyclist assumes it's a violent robbery on a family - may have heard cries for help. So the cyclist gets off his bike, runs to the car, and tries to intervene. At that point there is a stuggle between the cyclist and the hit men. The cyclist gets shot and killed. In the commotion, the older daughter inside the car tries to escape. She is knocked down and shot - but not accurately. The hit team is now concerned that another cyclist could come upon the scene at any moment. They quickly pump a couple more shots into the girl on the road, jump into their car, and flee. But the girl is still alive - barely.

This is fairly broad speculation. But if it's even close to the truth - the cyclist tried to be a hero. French police will figure that out. They will know a lot more if the wounded girl recovers and gives them details. This incident is going to create a lot of bad blood between the French authorities and whoever sent that hit team. Even though the target was killed, this operation was botched.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 21:45

#15 I came up with Russians as a possibility.

Some Russians would have lost an awful lot of money when that new Russian plane crashed in Indonesia recently. Perhaps they put the blame on Al Hilli's work.

Posted by: phil_b 2012-09-07 20:45

#14 sorry ... French authorities - not Swiss.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 18:04

#13 not sure about older daughter .. maybe the hitmen were in a hurry - or had a conscience. There will be an eye witness if she recovers and remembers. The Swiss authorities are going to be very upset - that one of their citizens was murdered in this incident.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 18:03

#12 The girl was found near the car and hospitalized. She will be operated on but her life is out of danger, he said.

My guess is they were not professionals.

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-07 17:31

#11 that's a reasonable piece of speculation. One thing I said above is wrong. The team that did the hit must have had remote surveillance on the vehicle - they knew the road and the time it was coming through. But they did not have anough resources to have a dedicated surveillance team at the location of the kill. That was a mistake - the cyclist showed up unexpectedly and was killed as a consequence. Professionally ... this was messy. Looks like hit men who were time-constrained, or lacking in resources (still professionals though).

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 17:26

#10 Al Hilli appears to be a shiia name. Was he doing work for Iran?

Posted by: phil_b 2012-09-07 17:12

#9 consistent with what i had in mind ... here's why: this family had to be under excellent surveillance in order for the murder to have been done in that location (it actually requires professional surveillance from a team), shots fired were quiet (hence low-caliber pistols with silencers), assassins were professional and cold (did not hesitate to kill cyclist who also happened to be in wrong spot at wrong time), youngest daughter may have been spared by the killers.

I can make a guess about who might have done this. Think other readers can too.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 16:48

#8 Police believe the killings were carried out by a professional hitman.

They say the four victims were finished off with shots to the centre of the forehead.

One theory being investigated is that it was the work of a foreign intelligence agency.

Detectives are exploring Mr al-Hillis ties to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Mr al-Hilli fled to Britain in 2002 with his parents who were forced to leave Iraq by the Saddam regime, according to the couples neighbours.

He worked in Guildford for a satellite engineer company called Surrey Satellite Technology and also had his own company called SH Tech, which does technical design for the aircraft industry.

He was found dead behind the wheel of the car, which was in a remote car park, with his wife and mother-in-law slumped on the back seat.

Link

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-07 16:07

#7 French media have named all but one of the victims. They are Saad al-Hilli, an Iraqi-born British citizen from Surrey, his wife Iqbal, an elderly woman with a Swedish passport, French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said, while Mr Hilli's wife held an Iraqi passport. The other man killed was French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, a local man and father of three children.

Foto of Saas al-Hilli

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-09-07 16:02

#6 thinking some more about this ... if there were cyclists competing in an event and they were spead out along the road (before and after the murder site) - doesn't that mean that one of these people has seen the suspects' vehicle? The hit team must have driven past them.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 15:51

#5 misprint "something small alright" should be something smells alright.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 14:51

#4 something small alright. I can see one brother killing another - but not the whole family and a cyclist as well. Looks like a lot of scrutiny will be focused on what that small aerospace firm was really doing ... incl their last customers.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 14:50

#3 From the Fox account: The man, identified as Saad al-Hilli, had lived in Britain since at least 2002, and his family had been in France since August.Public records identified al-Hilli as a mechanical engineer and his LinkedIn page described him as an aerospace consultant.Saad al-Hilli's father died recently in Spain, family friend Mae Faisal El-wailly told The Associated Press. She described the family as wealthy and well-traveled....Prosecutor Eric Maillaud said British police have reported that the girls' father had been feuding with his brother over money. A family friend said the father of the two men died recently -- while public records showed the brother had left the victim's small aeronautics design firm...According to public records, Saad al-Hilli's brother Zaid is between 50 and 54 years old, and resigned last year from his brother's company, Shtech Ltd., which specialized in computer-aided aeronautic design. His whereabouts were unclear... Shtech had only modest assets, with a net worth of roughly $13,000.

If the brother did it, and the 7 year old severely beaten and left for dead, why did he not wonder where the 4 year old was?(hiding under her mother's skirt) And a hit over $13,000? Something smells here.

Posted by: Omiger Hapsburg515 2012-09-07 12:51

#2 it was either a professional hit, or a very premeditated murder. the cyclist was taken down because he was in the wrong place at the wong time. another cyclist nearby (within a couple of miles) apparently did not hear shots - or that has not been reported. that might imply that a silenced weapon was used.

Posted by: Raider 2012-09-07 09:57

#1 The UK Telegraph is reporting it resulted from a family dispute.

Family disputes don't usually end in professional hits, unless you have a professional hitman in the family, of course.

Posted by: phil_b 2012-09-07 01:08

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