Professional hit in the Alps - why?

[Jan Klimkowski]

OK - with all the necessary caveats and health warnings about limited hangouts and blind alleys, here's the Daily Mail:

He fled Iraq as a boy, settled in Surrey and was spied on by the Special Branch: The extraordinary life of the engineer victim at the centre of the Alps shooting

Officers thought to be from Special Branch maintained constant surveillance on the aeronautical engineer and his family in 2003, said neighbour

Any operation on the family would almost certainly have been backed up by bugging devices within their detached home

Saad Al-Hilli's apparent family links to Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath party in Iraq may be of significance

By Arthur Martin, Tom Kelly and Lucy Osborne

PUBLISHED:22:53, 6 September 2012| UPDATED:16:51, 7 September 2012


Stationed on a driveway just yards from their target's £1million home, British police were said to have spent several weeks tracking the movements of Saad Al-Hilli at the start of the last Gulf War.

Officers thought to be from Special Branch maintained constant surveillance on the aeronautical engineer and his family, regularly following Mr Al-Hilli who fled Iraq as a boy and his brother whenever they drove off.

Last night Philip Murphy, a neighbour in the wealthy village of Claygate, Surrey, recalled how police asked if they could use his driveway to spy on the massacre victims' mock-Tudor house.

The retired finance director said: 'I watched them from the window and they were watching Mr Al-Hilli and his brother.

'I thought they were from Special Branch. They would sit there all day in their parked car just looking at the house.

'When Mr Al-Hilli came out and drove off, they would follow him. It was all very odd. I never told the family they were being watched.'

The surveillance happened as the invasion of Iraq by US and British forces began in March 2003.

Any operation on the family would almost certainly have been backed up by bugging devices within their detached home.

Last night it remained unclear why a surveillance team would be sent to watch a man who, on the outside at least, was a respected engineer.

Mr Al-Hilli, 50, a keen cyclist and badminton player, worked on a freelance basis for a satellite and aerospace technology company in Guildford.


He also owned a computer design company called SHTECH Ltd, which was formed in 2001, and was the company secretary for a Wiltshire-based aerial photography company in Swindon.

The dead man's apparent family links to Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath party in Iraq may be of significance.

A close friend told how Mr Al-Hilli's father Kadhim, a former factory owner, and mother Fasiha fled Baghdad in the late 1970s. The friend told how Mr Al-Hilli's father had fallen out with the Ba'ath party and was forced to flee the country.

It was during this time that Saddam Hussein became powerful in Iraq before becoming its leader in 1979. Mr Al-Hilli came to Britain as a teenager and was educated at Pimlico comprehensive school in central London where he took O- and A-levels, specialising in maths, physics and technical drawing.


He later took a degree in mechanical engineering and a computer qualification. His CV reveals that he was comfortable with using several software packages and had a string of jobs in the engineering field for the past 20 years. He became a British citizen in 2002.

Yesterday Jack Saltman, another neighbour, said Mr Al-Hilli had told how he was grappling with a 'personal problem' on August 29, the day the family left for France.

'He told me something about a problem he had,' Mr Saltman said. 'I told the police that I knew what this problem was but I still haven't been able to speak to them about it.

'I've known about it for several months now. I knew he had family in Iraq. He did say he was worried about their safety. He came around to see me the night before he went and asked me to keep an eye on the house. He wasn't particularly stressed. He was looking forward to taking the kids to France again.'

Mr Saltman declined to reveal the nature of the 'personal problem'.

Other neighbours in Claygate described Mr Al-Hilli as a devoted family man who 'had no enemies'.

George Aicolina said: 'This doesn't add up. He's no Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I very much doubt the Establishment would want to get rid of him.

'Every time I had a problem, I would go to him. He was a very clued-up person and a precise man.'

Mr Al-Hilli met his future wife Ikbal ten years ago while on holiday in Dubai.

The couple married a year later in Surrey. Mrs Al-Hilli, an Iraqi who trained as a dentist in Sweden, then moved into her husband's home in Claygate. There were just six people at their register office wedding in Weybridge and Mr Al-Hilli once wrote on the Friends Reunited website: 'I am very happily married with a seven-month-old daughter that has me wrapped around her little finger already.'

He recently sold his beloved Suzuki Bandit motorbike, writing ruefully in the for sale advert: 'Unfortunately it has to go as it is hardly used now with kids on the scene.'

Zainab was born in 2005 and attends nearby Claygate Primary School. Her younger sister Zeena was due to start in the 'reception year' of the same school next week.

The family loved travelling across Europe in their caravan and were understood to own a property in the Dordogne region of south-west France.

On this occasion, Mr Al-Hilli told neighbours how the family were going on a spur-of-the-moment two-week holiday to 'get some sunshine and cure his sore back'.


Mr Aicolina said: 'He met his wife in Dubai. He went there on holiday and he met her there. It was a great love affair. She was Iraqi by origin but her parents live in Sweden. She was practising dentistry in the Middle East and they met by chance I think.

'They were very, very close and loved the girls very much a happy loving family, very caring.

'He was a nice neighbour. Bad things always happen to the wrong people.'

Julian Stedman, 67, who was Mr Al-Hilli's accountant, insisted his client was 'straight up'.

'I have been to the house quite a few times and had tea there, Middle Eastern style,' he said.

'I have known Saad, his wife Ikbal and his father as well. Saad and I had talks possibly once a week and longer ones once every month.

'Saad is very much a family man. He was very much in love with his wife and his daughters. He adores them. He is a very kind and gentle person.

'I have had a tremendous shock. He never talked about what he did in Iraq.

'I never thought something of this kind would happen to him and his family. I am very saddened especially for the little girls who have been left behind.

'He was a straight-up guy. There was never any suggestion that he might be up to no good. His accounts were perfect.'

Neighbour Lorna Davey added: 'It's shocking. I can't believe it. They were just like everybody else very friendly and with two sweet little girls. The family was very westernised. There was no hint of an accent.'

Each one killed with a single shot to the head: Family massacred in French Alps bore trademark of a professional hitman

Remote location at car park near Lake Annecy would mean few if any witnesses to the atrocity

Killer could have been out of France within minutes of the murders on Wednesday, possibly boarding a plane from Geneva within two hours

He might also have known there were no security cameras in the area

Saad Al-Hilli, a Baghdad-born businessman, who lived in Claygate, Surrey, was killed along with his wife Iqbal, his mother-in-law and a passing cyclist

His daughter Zeena, four, managed to survive ordeal
Her older sister, Zainab, seven, found near car in critical condition after being hit three times over head with a blunt instrument



By Stephen Wright

PUBLISHED:22:49, 6 September 2012| UPDATED:09:54, 7 September 2012

Three adult members of a seemingly respectable family, each murdered with a single shot in the head.


A seven-year-old girl left with life-threatening injuries and her younger sister badly traumatised after somehow escaping alive from a psychopathic killer.


A cyclist who is believed to have witnessed the bloodbath mercilessly assassinated.


Such barbarity would be shocking in some of the world's most lawless countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia...


But for it to happen in a car park near the tranquil shores of Lake Annecy in the French Alps makes the crime infinitely more difficult to comprehend.


And, crucially, much more difficult to solve.


What better location for a professional hit than in a remote area, with few if any witnesses likely to see the atrocity, with quick road access to airports in three countries France, Italy and Switzerland, and even further afield.

As French police launched an extensive manhunt to find the killer or killers, investigators were officially keeping an open mind about the motive for the crime and who might have been behind it.


The ruthless efficiency with which the murders were carried out suggested strongly that Saad Al-Hilli, his wife Ikbal and the rest of his family were specific targets, and the cyclist killed because he saw too much.

Pictures of the murder scene in an isolated forest car park, 2.5 miles from the nearest village show how the BMW was hit with automatic fire before the victims were finished off at point-blank range.

Had Mr Al-Hilli and his family been targeted in the UK, police would probably have had access to CCTV footage and data from number-plate recognition cameras, in their hunt for the killer's escape vehicle.

But in Chevaline there has never been any need for security cameras, another possible clue that the killer may have carefully researched the best place, in terms of escaping detection, to commit the crimes.

A quick look at a local map shows he could have been out of France within minutes of the murders on Wednesday, possibly boarding a plane from Geneva within two hours

Or perhaps he elected to drive several hours across Europe. Several witnesses reported seeing a car speeding away from the scene near Albertville, in France's Haute-Savoie region, close to the Italian and Swiss borders, around the time of the attack.

No arrests were made in the immediate aftermath of the attack, nor did police report the discovery of any weapon.

But 15 spent, automatic pistol cartridges were found at the scene. It was clearly an act of extreme savagery and it was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill,' said French prosecutor Eric Maillaud.


If Mr Al-Hilli's family were deliberately targeted, police will want to establish how the killer knew where they were. Did he wait outside their campsite before ambushing them in the countryside?


The Iraqi-born British businessman's commercial activities and political affiliations in his homeland will also be key lines of inquiry