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

[Phil Dragoo]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...scene.html

France shooting: Witness saw 4x4 and motorbike at scene

Video at Telegraph link



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fre...li-1310898

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


Good gallery of pics at Mirror link

The "special service" had surveilled him back in the day, but now we are to assume despite denials from surviving brother that it was over an inheritance of a million pounds.

Would a million pounds be much after taxes.

Would it warrant this elaborate selection of site and ruthless instant murder of the inconvenient cyclist.

Didn't hear shots but not saying silencers were used.

4 X 4 and motorbike, two perps.

Well let's see do I take a half million pounds and let my brother have the other half or do I get Matt Damon and Tom Cruise to film Major Overkill for a Piddling Amount.

[Magda Hassan]

Some info here. No nothing about this blog or blogger

AL HILLI CRIME SCENE: TIMELINE RECONSTRUCTION

SEPT. 05, 2012:

MORNING- Campers at the Le Solitaire du Lac see the two young girls picking apples. Nothing else of significance is reported the rest of the morning such as Saad on the cellphone in a rather intense conversation; nobody paying the family a visit.

NOON--Still no reports of anything unusual about to happen.

2:00 PM--About this time, Saad possibly loads the family into the red BMW and decides to take them up into some isolated carpark above the village of Chevaline.

(CHEVALINE ELEV. =1726')

2:30-3:00 PM--Bricklayer-stonemason Laurent Fillion-Robin, 38, looks up from his work to see the red BMW pass by enroute up Route de la Combe d'Ire (N 45, 44', 45"; E 6, 13', 29"; Elev=+2300') to the carpark. He reports they are not being followed.

3:00PM--Somewhere up on the road to the carpark, two cyclists are headed up the hill; one would eventually become a victim, the other a hero. The RAF pilot makes no mention of a red BMW passing him as he pedals up the hill, only that the victim, Sylvain Mollier passes him.

3:30 PM--or thereabouts, the crimes are committed at the carpark, the victims each shot multiple times, little girl Zeena in frozen stealth position on backseat floor, Zainab severly beaten outside the vehicle and cyclist Mollier lay dead from multiple gunshot wounds.

3:40 PM--or thereabouts--RAF pilot, still pedalling up the hill, notices two vehicles coming off the hill at high speed, the elusive green 4X4 SUV and the motorbike.

4:00 PM--or a few minutes before. RAF pilot arrives at the crime scene, rescues the beaten Zainab, smashes the BMW window, turns off the engine, calls police and emergency.

4:00 PM--or a few minutes afterwards. Sylvie Lecouer, 49, coming back from grocery shopping, is nearly run off the road by the elusive, speeding Peugot 306 driven in a panic by a crewcut man with black hair and black polo neck shirt. "HE WAS COMING DOWN THE HILL ON THE WRONG SIDE" He was a British driver...

4:00 PM--and beyond. Police and emergency arrive at the crime scene, Zainab is taken to hospital, Zeena is still in the frozen stealth backseat floorspace, gendarmes seal off the crime scene and a helicopter is dispatched with infra-red technology to search for body heat in the vicinity.

5:00 PM--to dark. Zeena continues to hide, a forensics team has been dispatched from several hours away preventing the locals from entering the vehicle.

8:00 PM--sometime afterward, the vehicle is identified, the police go to the campground and discover there is a little girl still missing.

MIDNIGHT--or thereabouts, forensics teams arrive and discover Zeena hiding in the BMW.

[Magda Hassan]

Odd that forensics have been all over the place since last week and only just now they have the bomb squad in.....wonder when they removed the bugs and other surveillance equipment?

British army bomb disposal experts have left the home of a family killed in the French Alps after examining a number of suspicious items.Police earlier evacuated neighbouring homes and cordoned off two roads while the bomb squad checked the house Saad al-Hilli in Claygate, Surrey, south-west of London.
Police said the experts were called in "due to concerns around items found at the address" and added that an "assessment of items found at the address is currently being carried out as a precaution".
But after nearly three hours the Royal Logistics Corps bomb disposal van left the scene along with another police vehicle and police reopened the road, according to an agency photographer who was at the scene.
A Surrey Police spokeswoman said they would issue a statement later but had no immediate details on the results of the search.
British media reports said the search focused on a shed at the bottom of the garden.
Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old naturalised Briton born in Iraq, his wife Ikbal and his 74-year-old mother-in-law were shot dead in a forest car park in an alpine tourist area near Annecy in south-east France last week.
A cyclist passing by at the time of the shooting was also shot dead.
The elder of two child survivors of the shooting remained under sedation, unable to speak to investigators hoping she could help them unravel the mystery surrounding the attack.
Zainab al-Hilli, 7, is recovering from a fractured skull and a bullet wound in the shoulder.
"When the doctors give us authorisation we will be able to interview her in hospital, but for the moment they are not allowing it," Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud said.
"She was in an induced coma which she was brought out of on Sunday but she remains under sedation. It is a normal process."
With apparently little headway being made in the hunt for the killer or killers, Zainab's potential testimony has taken on enormous importance for detectives probing the quadruple murder on either side of the English Channel.
Her four-year-old sister Zeena survived the attack unscathed after hiding in the back of the family car but has not been able to provide any significant information about what happened.

PHOTO: British forensic officers outside the family's house in Claygate, England, last week.

[Jan Klimkowski]

This was briefly reported on Sunday (yesterday) and then largely dropped by MSM:

Alps Victim 'Hid Documents' Before Holiday

Sky's Tom Parmenter speaks to a close family friend of Saad al Hilli who says he had been worried about security


By Tom Parmenter, Sky News Correspondent

The British man shot dead in the French Alps hid important documents inside his own home before leaving for his holiday.

Saad al Hilli, 50, was shot with his wife Iqbal and an elderly relative when their car was targeted on a remote mountain road.

A close family friend in the UK has spoken to Sky News and said that two months before their holiday Mr al Hilli suffered from heart palpitations and spent a night in hospital.

The friend, who didn't want to be identified, also revealed that Mr al Hilli had been very concerned about some documents the day before he left for the caravan trip to France.

Other neighbours in Claygate, Surrey, have confirmed that he had expressed concerns about security at the family home shortly before they left.

The family friend who has known Mr al Hilli for many years was also asked to "keep an eye on the house" and even offered to take the documents for safekeeping.

Mr al Hilli told the friend: "No, don't worry I've hidden them somewhere inside."

Police searches are continuing at the family home and French detectives have based themselves at Woking police station while they continue their work to see if there is any reason why the family could have been targeted.

The elaborate theories that have been put forward have baffled many friends and relatives of the al Hilli family.

"He was just a nice decent guy," the family friend added.

Then today, with a huge and hysterical fanfare, the "Bomb Squad" descend on the family home and neighbours are evacuated.

Were the cops really looking for a bomb?

Or were they searching for something else altogether?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ah - looks like a spooky blind alley to me.

The fix is in.

French police: cyclist may have been target of Annecy slaughter

A French cyclist who was shot dead alongside a British family in a massacre in the Alps may have been the "main
target" of the massacre, police have suggested.

By Victoria Ward Daily Telegraph
9:44AM BST 17 Sep 2012

Lt Colonel Benedict Vinnemann, who is leading the police inquiry, revealed he was considering the possibility Sylvain Mollier, the cyclist, was the real target. He was buried yesterday.

It had previously been suggested that Mr Mollier was killed because he had interrupted the killing of Saad al-Hilli, his wife and mother-in-law by a hitman.

But Lt Col Vinneman said: "Was the al-Hilli family the main target? Was it not the cyclist? Only ongoing work on the scene can answer this question clearly.

"We're talking about someone whom everybody says was a gentleman, but who's to say he did not lead a double life?"

French police were yesterday accused of "playing politics" over the Alps massacre by asserting that the origins of the case lie in the UK.


Brian Paddick, the former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said that unless there was clear evidence that ruled out the other theories, it was "dangerous" to switch the focus of the investigation to this country.

"It smacked to me of more of a political decision than a professional police one," he said.

"It was as if they did not want the reputation of France, and particularly this picturesque tourist spot, damaged by the suggestion that this could be anything to do with the French police or people in that area."

French police investigating the deaths of Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, and a passing French cyclist in Annecy, south-eastern France, have stated that they are working on three lines of inquiry; a bitter family feud over inheritance, Mr-al-Hilli's work as an aeronautic engineer and his Iraqi origins.

It emerged yesterday that the French investigation is being scaled back, with many of the original 120 gendarmes working on the case returning to normal duties after Eric Maillard, the chief prosecutor in Annecy, said that he was convinced the answer to the mystery lay in the UK.

Mr Paddick added: "When you do not have any clear front runner in terms of theories, you need to pursue each of the potential explanations relentlessly."

DCI Colin Sutton, a retired detective who investigated the Levi Bellfield murders, suggested that such an approach could be short-sighted unless there was specific evidence to back it up, although he noted that the French police were unlikely to divulge too much detail about their progress.

"It seems (Mr Maillard) may have closed his mind completely to the case having its roots in France," he said. "Unless they have any evidence to base that on, it seems a little dangerous to me."

Mr Mollier worked for Cezus, a subsidiary of the Areva Group, specialising in zirconium metalworking for nuclear fuel containers.

However, the ballistics evidence is intriguing.

25 rounds for four murders, leaving two witnesses - children - alive?

Perhaps the assassin was not quite so coldly professional after all.

The victims are believed to have been shot with a Luger P08, a distinctive weapon which was standard issue to the Swiss army and which fires distinctive 7.65mm calibre bullets.

The weapon has a capacity of eight rounds meaning that a lone gunman, who fired around 25 bullets during the massacre, would have used more than three magazines.

Also, there are separate newspaper reports that up to fifteen shell casings were left at the scene, and their location at the crime scene potentially reveals a chronological sequence.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

As Jan expected earlier, the results of the investigations seem to indicate that Sylvain Mollier was the first target of the Alps murder, and the al-Hillis may have been witnesses.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...veals.html

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...sacre.html

Saddam Hussain gave £840,000 to the family of the British engineer who was murdered with his wife in the Alps, it was claimed last night.

The former Iraqi dictator is said to have deposited the sum in a Swiss bank account in the name of Saad Al-Hilli's father.

The claim, which apparently originated with German intelligence, adds a sensational twist to the baffling case.

Of course this still does not explain, why the family was slaughtered, and by whom.

[Peter Lemkin]

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...sacre.html

Saddam Hussain gave £840,000 to the family of the British engineer who was murdered with his wife in the Alps, it was claimed last night.

The former Iraqi dictator is said to have deposited the sum in a Swiss bank account in the name of Saad Al-Hilli's father.

The claim, which apparently originated with German intelligence, adds a sensational twist to the baffling case.

Of course this still does not explain, why the family was slaughtered, and by whom.

Less so, the cyclist!......

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Just on the news, details sketchy: There was a 54-year old man arrested today in Surrey, who is a suspect in the Alps murder case.