Thread: 'British family' gunned down in the Alps: 4 die, police guard girl of 8

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

So ok, maybe he has a fantastic job, paying a fortune, if so why spend time in a caravan

They were/are Arabs and we know Arabs like taking caravans across deserts.

Originally Posted by superman

They were/are Arabs and we know Arabs like taking caravans across deserts.

I know the south of France is warm, but its hardly a desert!

Something odd.

The Guardian is reporting that his job was a design engineer in the air-industry - and the his last project was designing the galley kitchen of the new Airbus.

Not exactly the stuff to get Mossad, MI6 or the Iranian secret service all excited.

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

Originally Posted by Koojo

Mr Saltman said the family, who owned a house in France, had been there earlier this year and were returning for a few days with their caravan before the children returned to school.

Yeah like i said. They have a house in France but then go camping in the same country,, mmmmm,, dont think so.
How does a Iraqi immigrant afford a house in Surry (500k +) a house in france and a brand spanking BMW estate.
So ok, maybe he has a fantastic job, paying a fortune, if so why spend time in a caravan, most peoples worst nightmare. Stay in a Hotel.

Why bring the caravan back to the UK, why not leave it in the decent climate the French have, rather than sit it on the drive to rot here.

Something doesnt fit right.

I rather think it may be your dismal perception of how the moneyed middle classes spend their time on summer vacations.

Clearly, you are probably an all in merchant used to the delights of Airtours packages to Grotos.

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

How many Foriegn nationals in the UK go on camping holidays to the south of France??

Where does it say that they were camping?

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

Caravan looks far too small for a family of 5.

Caravan is a model name for a BMW station-wagon, quite suitable for 5.

Originally Posted by superman

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

So ok, maybe he has a fantastic job, paying a fortune, if so why spend time in a caravan

They were/are Arabs and we know Arabs like taking caravans across deserts.

oh my... and i thought it were the dutchies, jamming all europe...

Originally Posted by alitongkat

Originally Posted by superman

Originally Posted by navydoubs1977

So ok, maybe he has a fantastic job, paying a fortune, if so why spend time in a caravan

They were/are Arabs and we know Arabs like taking caravans across deserts.

oh my... and i thought it were the dutchies, jamming all europe...

Pass the Dutchie coz we jammin', we jammin', we jammin'
.....

Surely the brother is not involved or else the girl with the head injuries found outside the car, with a gunshot and several blows to the head would know him as she is 8 yrs. old.
Conjecture yes, but surely he/they would have finished her off as nastily as they did the other family members.
Insurance/heritance ?.. this really is a weird one and you all know how long it took the French to 'solve' the Caroline Dickinson murder of some years back.

Originally Posted by dobella

Surely the brother is not involved or else the girl with the head injuries found outside the car, with a gunshot and several blows to the head would know him as she is 8 yrs. old.

I don't think he would be so stupid as to do it himself...

I don't suppose the girls will be much help if the killers were contract hire

Originally Posted by lom

Where does it say that they were camping?

Throughout!

Alps Killings: No Clues From Terrified Girl

Alps Killings: No Clues From Terrified Girl

Police will have to proceed gently with a traumatised four-year-old who witnessed her family being shot, experts tell Sky News.

6:32pm UK, Friday 07 September 2012

Video: Dealing With The Trauma Of Shootings

A four-year-old girl who witnessed her family being brutally killed in France has been unable to offer clues about the killer's identity.

Saad al Hilli's daughter Zaina was found hiding in the footwell of the bullet-ridden BMW. She was not found by police for eight hours.

The little girl was able to give the first names of her dead parents, and her seven-year-old sister Zehab, who was badly beaten and shot in the shoulder.

But she did not know the identity of the other woman found dead in the car. It was initially reported she was Mr al-Hilli's mother-in-law.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud told a news conference that Zaina had not seen the attackers.

"She didn't bring anything to the inquiry," he added. "The little girl was terrorised. She rushed under her mother's legs. She heard, but she didn't see anything."

Dr Jennifer Wild, a consultant clinical psychologist at Oxford University, told Sky News Zaina will be in a hyper-aroused state.


Col Benoit Vinneman, Lt Cl Bertrand Francois and Prosecuter Eric Maillaud

"All she probably wants is to be cuddled, but now she has to think about what happened. They'll have to be very sensitive and take into account she's just four years old.

"Being in a hyper-aroused state affects memory. She would have had a sudden increase in cortisol in her body and, given the nature of what she saw, she will have developed horrific memories.

"So she will be giving police a traumatised-little-girl's view of the world and they need to be very gentle with her because she'll only remember the worst parts.

"The way trauma affects us also depends how gruesome the trauma is. She clearly knew something really bad was happening and as a result she became very scared.

"As soon as we're scared our bodies go into a fight-or-flight mode to prepare ourselves to flee the danger or, as in this case, choose to hide.

"She will need a lot of support early on as everything will be so confusing for her."


A police officer outside the family home in Claygate, Surrey

Trauma psychologist Dr James Thompson told Sky News the best way to elicit information from the girl would be for her to be questioned by hospital staff rather than police.

"It will be a particularly skilled task, you have to cope with a traumatised young patient and there will also be policemen outside who desperately want to find things out," he said.

"The best thing is to combine those tasks and to have nurses reporting on what the children say as they will be able to more gently find out what happened."

Britain's French ambassador, Sir Peter Ricketts, said the French authorities had acted professionally in dealing with the killings and insisted both girls were receiving the best of care.

"We have to do everything possible to find the perpetrators of this terrible crime. Any assistance or help they require, we will give them.

"We’re following-up information to be in touch with family members and it is normal practice to make contact with them as soon as possible.

"It will then be up to them whether they want to come here and if they choose to do that, of course we will help them."


Saad al Hilli may have been involved in a family dispute, say police

Hopes pinned on wounded girl as Alps shooting probe stalls - Channel NewsAsia

Hopes pinned on wounded girl as Alps shooting probe stalls

Posted: 08 September 2012 0240 hrs


A general view of the CHU Hospital, in Grenoble, French Alps, where the two daughters of a British-Iraqi family are staying after a shooting on September 5. (AFP/PHILIPPE MERLE)

ANNECY, France: Investigators into the murders of a British family in the French Alps were pinning their hopes Friday on the wounded seven-year girl, as their probe appeared to make little headway.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud said police hoped the girl, who remains in a medically induced coma after being shot and badly beaten in the attack, would be able to finally shed some light on the mysterious murders.

"She is a key witness," he said. "We hope that she will be able to tell us what she went through, provide us with descriptions of the murderer or murderers."

Prosecutors are also investigating if a family feud over money could have been the motive for Wednesday's brutal slayings. The brother of the British man slain in the attack has denied any such dispute to British police.

French police have so far failed to make much progress in the investigation into the killings.

Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old Briton born in Iraq, his wife Iqbal and his 74-year-old mother-in-law were gunned down in a forest car park in an Alpine tourist area on Wednesday.

Their seven-year-old daughter Zainab was left for dead and their four-year-old daughter Zeena survived the attack, hiding undetected for eight hours under her dead mother's skirts following the shooting.

A local man, 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier, was also killed after apparently stumbling on the attack on the family's car.

Maillaud said British police had told French authorities of a financial dispute between Hilli and his brother, but he cautioned against jumping to the conclusions: the brother was only being questioned as a witness, he said.

"The brother spontaneously presented himself to the British authorities, at first because he was worried and wanted to know if it was true that his brother had died in France," Maillaud said.

"He went back again today and told them: I have no conflict with my brother."

The prosecutor also revealed that Hilli was "totally unknown" to British and French intelligence services, contradicting media reports suggesting he had been placed under surveillance around the time of the last Iraq war.

It was unclear when the elder daughter might be able to be questioned, he said.

"She is still under medical protection. The doctors have absolutely not given a green light for her to be interviewed," the prosecutor said. "If and when they do, it will happen in the presence of British diplomats."

He added however that she was "doing better" after surgery and was "out of danger".

Maillaud said a former Royal Air Force pilot who found the victims within minutes of their deaths had seen a "green or other dark-coloured four-wheel drive car."

He said four-year-old Zeena had been unable to help investigators, adding that officers had to be "extremely careful about the declarations of a traumatised little girl".

She had confirmed the identities of her family however. She was being cared for by child psychology experts and British embassy staff and was due to be returned to England soon, he said.

Post-mortems on the victims' bodies had begun and results were due late Friday or early Saturday. The response to a formal request for DNA samples from Britain was also expected to arrive on Saturday.

The family were killed in their British-registered BMW estate car in a forest car park near the village of Chevaline in the picturesque Haute-Savoie region.

Each had been shot multiple times, including at least once in the head.

The family, from Surrey in southern England, had been staying since September 3 at the nearby Saint Jorioz camp site.

French authorities on Friday formally opened two criminal investigations into the shooting, one for the pre-meditated murders of the four victims and the other for the attempted murders of the two child survivors.

Maillaud said three French police officers would arrive in London on Friday and another on Saturday to oversee coordination with British police.

Authorities unblocked access to the site of the killing in Chevaline Friday but few signs remained of the incident other than some broken glass, tyre tracks and small traces of blood.

In Britain, bouquets of flowers were building up outside the family's spacious home in Claygate, a teddy bear placed among them.

"They were a lovely, lovely family," said one of a group of tearful mothers whose children attended the local primary school with the two girls.

-AFP/ac

French Alps shootings: Saad al-Hilli brother Zaid denies row over £1million inheritance - Mirror Online

'There was no family feud': Brother of French Alps shooting victim denies row over £1million inheritance

The French prosecutor told a press conference today that Zaid has told police in the UK was no dispute with brother Saad


Bloody scene: The family BMW with (inset) Saad Al-Hilli

The brother of the Briton gunned down with his family in the French Alps has told police there was NO family feud over a million pound inheritance.

Saad al-Hilli, 50, and his family were found massacred on a remote road near to Lake Annecy in eastern France on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud said Mr al-Hilli's brother Zaid had spoken to police this morning after reports of the row emerged.

It was reported that Iraqi-born Mr al-Hilli had been involved in a bitter legal dispute with his brother, Zaid al-Hilli, over an inheritance worth more than £1 million.

But Mr Maillaud said at a press conference: "He turned up again this morning and he said 'no, I don't have a conflict with my brother'.

He had first spoken to UK police yesterday after learning of the massacre from media reports.


Killed: Dad Saad Al-Hilli was shot in the French Alps Collect

The prosecutor also revealed that Mr al-Saad's four-year-old daughter Zeena, who survived by hiding under her mum's skirt, had spoken to police about the attack.

She has described what Mr Maillaud said was the "fury" and "terror" of a massacre during which 25 bullets were fired at the victims.

He said Zeena had told police she was with her mother and father when the attack happened but she did not see anything because she "dived under her mother's legs" when the shooting began.

Mr Maillaud said that Zeena will be reunited with other members of her family as soon as possible.

Her sister Zainab, seven, who was found lying in the road having been severely beaten, is in an artificially induced coma in hospital in Grenoble.

Iraqi-born Mr al-Hilli was gunned down in his car alongside his dentist wife Iqbal and a woman believed to be her mother.

Mr al-Hilli and one of the women were shot in the head along with a French cyclist who apparently stumbled across the attack.

The bloodbath was discovered by a British cyclist, who alerted police after he saw the elder girl collapse in the road and discovered the bodies of the victims in and near to the car.

Mr Maillaud also dismissed claims police were hunting a white Peugeot 4x4 as "Chinese whispers" and blamed the confusion on many people contacting the press with bits of information.

He confirmed that the cyclist - a British RAF veteran - had seen a green or dark coloured 4x4 and a motorbike as he pedalled towards the scene of the horror.

The cyclist also told police that he did not hear gunshots, although Mr Maillaud would not speculate whether a silencer was used.

Zeena and Zainab are apparently the only witnesses to the shootings on an isolated road and are now under police protection.

Mr Maillaud said a French investigator had come to the UK to speak to Mr al-Hilli's brother.

He also revealed that British police were now directly involved in the hunt for the killers.

"It's a Franco-British investigation," he said.

Investigators are waiting for the green light from medical staff at Grenoble University Hospital to talk to Zainab as the motive behind the killings remained a mystery.

Asked again today whether he thought it was a professional killing, Mr Maillaud would only say: "They were people who certainly wanted to kill people and they were not scared of taking a life."

He refused to identify the weapon used, arguing that the police did not want to reveal everything they know to the killers.


Police search: British officers are joining the investigation Getty

But he did tell reporters that 25 bullet cartridges had now been recovered from the scene. Earlier the police had only referred to 15.

Speaking earlier today Mr Maillaud said detectives hoped Zainab, who is in a stable condition, will recover sufficiently from the trauma to speak to them and that her memory had not been damaged.

"We are waiting for the ballistic team's report and, when possible, a hearing with the eldest girl," said Mr Maillaud.

"Maybe she can give us information on the number of people present for example, or the colour of their skin, and other elements of description that might allow us to consider a bit more seriously a first lead.

"Medical staff have not yet given us access to the girl, we are waiting for their decision."

Zainab was beaten repeatedly around the head and shot in the shoulder in the attack on the Surrey family, which took place on Wednesday.

She was hit with "tremendous ferocity", said the prosecutor.

Her younger sister was found alive in the family's BMW underneath the bodies of her relatives around eight hours after the massacre, which also saw passing French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, shot dead.


Family home: PA

It is unclear if the shootings were carried out by one killer or a number of people.

One theory is that shots could have been fired during a bungled armed robbery, with Mr Mollier being a witness to the crime.

But speculation about other possible motives, including a pre-planned attack by professional hitmen, remained rife.

Some media reports have suggested that Mr al-Hilli, an engineer who left Saddam Hussein's Iraq several years ago, was known to the security services and was put under surveillance by Metropolitan Police Special Branch during the second Gulf war.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said last night that they cannot comment. But it is understood there is no link between the deaths and any national security issues.

It was a British cyclist, a former RAF serviceman who had been overtaken by the French rider, who came across the scene.

He put injured Zainab in the recovery position and immediately called emergency services.

Today, French gendarmes lifted a road block nearly two miles away from where the murder took place.

At the scene, a few pebbles spotted with blood, small shards of glass and tyre marks could be seen on the ground. There was a dent in a bank of dirt and vegetation at the back of the car park which the family's BMW estate hit during the attack.

At Le Solitaire du Lac campsite in Saint-Jorioz, a caravan thought to belong to the family was cordoned off and its windows taped up.

^ Ok, that's the most up-to-date news reports I can find.

All very mysterious.

Sounds like a disgruntled victim of British dentistry decided to take revenge...

so, the brother denies it

MI6 deny any knowledge of the man

The French police deny their cuisine has faltered seriously in the last few years

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingn...ts-in-the-head

Alps victims all had 2 bullets in the head

• Published: 8/09/2012 at 10:26 PM
• Online news:

Four people killed in a horrifying shooting in the French Alps were all shot twice in the head, autopsies carried out on their bodies have established, officials said Saturday.

"All four were killed by several bullets and all four were hit twice in the head,'' Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters here.

"The whole scene was played out in a very, very short time.''

The prosecutor refused to offer any interpretation of his remarks, but they will inevitably strengthen the impression held by many experts on crime that the attack was the work of professional killers.

Maillaud said he could not divulge any details of the ballistic analysis of the bullets recovered from the bodies of three members of a British-Iraqi family and a local cyclist who is believed to have come upon the scene of Wednesday's shooting by chance.

Investigators will have established from the autopsies how many guns were used in the attack and possibly the type of weapon or weapons, which may give them an indication as to whether the attack was a random robbery or car-jacking that went wrong or a contract killing.

Maillaud said such details could not be made public without compromising the investigation and signalled that the local authorities would be significantly scaling back the amount of information released to the media as they attempt to get to the bottom of a quadruple murder that so far has left them baffled.

"I think we have arrived at the limit of what can be said, or resaid or released to the public,'' Maillaud said, announcing that he would not be holding any more press conferences until the middle of next week.

Maillaud confirmed that French police officers were Saturday searching the home of the al-Hilli family on the outskirts of London and that the brother of Saad al-Hilli would be interviewed by police.

But he warned that speculation that a financial dispute between the two brothers may have led to the killing was not based on any firm evidence.

"Everyone talks about a dispute between the brothers as it was an established fact. The brother says there was no dispute so let us remain cautious about that.

"He will be interviewed in the coming days, just as we will interview any other members of the (extended) family. It is no more and no less than that.''

Maillaud said the search of the al-Hilli home would help to build up a profile of the family, while stressing that there should be no presumption that they were involved in any activity which might have made them targets.

"We will try to find out the maximum amount about the life of this family, about the father's professional life, the companies he may have worked for, as well as the history and heritage of the family.''

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

"I think we have arrived at the limit of what can be said, or resaid or released to the public,''

Shame...we will have to ad-lib like the "English papers" in Thailand from now on...

the news media are desperate for a story

today they released the "news" that two mobile phones were found in the car

they have not yet mentioned the halal dill pickles or the wrapping from a take away curry

there were some news today...

- the victims were shot each twice in the head (what apparently is something very "professional")

- it were two assassins

- the whole murder took 30 seconds (suggesting they must have military training)

Caroline Dickson was murdered some years back in France and the 'clever' French police fucked it all up.
The killer was only bought to justice being found for another crime in Florida and got fingered for this by Interpol.
Dont hold out your hopes that the French police will solve this one.

I thought I read something in an earlier report that said he designed Kitchens.

France shooting: was Saad Al-Hilli assassinated over secret defence contract?
Detectives investigating the shooting in the Alps massacre are looking into whether Saad Al-Hilli could have been targeted over links to the defence industry.

Zaid, left, has told police there is no dispute with his brother Saad Photo: Juliet Lemon
By Steven Swinford12:15PM BST 09 Sep 2012
Detectives investigating the shooting in the alps massacre are looking into whether Saad Al-Hilli could have been targeted over links to the defence industry.
Mr Al-Hilli was killed alongside his wife and mother-in-law last week. His daughters Zainab, seven, and Zeena, four, survived the killing.
There is growing speculation over the motives for the killings. French detectives are reportedly keen to question work colleagues of Saad after discovering that he was killed while working on a secret contract for one of Britain's biggest defence companies.
Mr Al-Hilli worked for Surrey Satellites Technology Limited (SSTL) near Guildford, and detectives are expected to ask colleagues about whether his work may have made him a target for assassination.
Mr Al-Hilli was part of a team involved in an undisclosed project linked to European Aeronautic Defence and Space. The company designs and launches satellites for clients who want an "eye in the sky" for commercial, civil or security purposes.

However, friends and colleagues said his work was routine and not secret.
Shtech, the aeronautical business which he ran with his wife Iqbal and which had sub-contracted with SSTL, registered profits of just £8,330 last year. Derek Reed, who worked at SSTL, told The Sunday Times: "He would not have had to sign the Official Secrets Act for what he was doing."
It also reported that Mr Al-Hilli had worked at the internationally-renowned Rutherford Appleton research centre in the 1980s.
According to an ex-colleague at the Rutherford lab in Didcot, Oxon, Saad worked on a giant particle accelerator which can make radioactive material, The People reported.
Four-year-old Zeena Al-Hilli who survived the massacre by hiding under the her dead mother's skirt will return to Britain today.
Zeena who spent eight hours hiding in the car alongside the bodies of her mother and father, is reportedly flying back with two relatives and a social worker.
She and her sister, Zainab, seven, were the sole survivors of the killings in which their father, Saad, and mother, Iqbal, were murdered alongside an unnamed 74-year-old woman and a passing French cyclist.
The family were on a caravanning holiday in Lake Annecy in France when they were attacked on Wednesday afternoon.
According to prosecutors all four victims were shot twice in the head, increasing speculation that the family were victims of a professional hit.
It was also reported that French police are hunting two killers after discovering that more than one weapon was used in the shootings.
Zainab remains in a medically induced coma in a French hospital after being shot in the shoulder and beaten badly during the attack.
Zeena was yesterday comforted in France by members of her family, thought to be her aunt and uncle and is due back in England today.
Investigators in Britain are today expected to interview Zaid al-Hilli, Saad's brother, again as a witness about claims, which he has denied, that he was involved in a feud with his younger brother over their fathers legacy.
Zaid, 53, spoke to a cousin in Australia after being informed of the murder and broke down in tears. The cousin, Ali al-Hilli, told The Sunday Telegraph: "He kept saying: ‘Why, why, why? How did this happen?’
"I don’t think Zaid is coping with the pressure. He is really in very deep shock. When I spoke to him he was clearly devastated.
"He wasn’t coping. He is on his own. I think he feels lonely. I was trying my best to give him support although I am far away."

France shooting: was Saad Al-Hilli assassinated over secret defence contract? - Telegraph

Originally Posted by DrAndy

so, the brother denies it MI6 deny any knowledge of the man The French police deny their cuisine has faltered seriously in the last few years

Incompetence, corruption and ignorance not only a Thai BiB trait.