Professional hit in the Alps - why?

[Magda Hassan]

Looks like it is the brother. Maybe a Romanian hitman?

[Peter Lemkin]

Al Jazeera just announced that a man who is suspected to be the killer has been arrested...we will see...

[David Guyatt]

The scent of deflection perhaps?

Al-Hilli massacre: Man held was policeman at time of killings

'Eric D' identified in French press as a father-of-three and gun-lover, dismissed last June from job as municipal officer

JOHN LICHFIELD

PARIS

Wednesday 19 February 2014



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The local man arrested for questioning about the Al-Hilli massacre was a policeman at the time of the killings, it has emerged.

The 48-year-old man, identified by the French press as "Eric D.", is a father of three and a gun-lover with a reputation for making racist remarks. He was dismissed from his job as a municipal policeman a low level, unarmed officer in a nearby town last June, nine months after the quadruple murder on a forest road above Lake Annecy.
Sources in the investigation say that they are now concentrating on the likelihood that an "isolated, local" gunman was responsible for the brutal murder of three members of the British-Iraqi Al-Hilli family and a French cyclist on 5 September 2012. They admit, however, that they have no firm evidence against "Eric D", who is regarded at this stage as a "key witness" rather than a formal "suspect".
Neighbours told local journalists, however, that they had never seen "Eric D" riding a motorcycle. He has identified by gendarmerie detectives as a possible "witness" or "suspect" because of his physical resemblance to a beefy, bearded man seen riding a motorbike close to the forest lay-by where the murders happened.
Neighbours and acquaintances painted a mixed portrait of Eric D. Alexis, a waiter in Menthon-Saint Bernard where he was once a policeman, described him as "very nice" and "always ready to listen". After he was dismissed from the local force, he worked for a Swiss security firm and gained the nickname, in English, "Men in Black".
Other local people described him as a un unpleasant "aggressive" man, who loved to hand out parking tickets and was known for making "xenophobic" or "racist" remarks.
Saad al-Hilli and his family were killed in September 2012Acording to the regional newspaper, Le Dauphine Liberé, records of Eric D's mobile phone show that he was close to the murder scene on 5 September but it is unclear how close.
According to French press reports, at least seven other local people may be arrested for "acting as a criminal gang". It is unclear whether they will be accused of involvement in the quadruple murder itself or whether they are thought to have conspired to cover the tracks of the murderer.
Eric D was under questioning for a second day today at the regional gendarmerie headquarters in Chambéry. He can be held for up to four days before a judge has to decide whether or not he should be released.
Eric D had been under surveillance for several weeks before he was arrested on Tuesday. A number of local people had tipped off gendarmes about his resemblance to an e-fit sketch released in November last year of the biker seen close to the massacre..
Forestry workers told gendarmes at the time that they had seen a beefy man with a beard on a private road in the mountains just above the crime scene. He was wearing a rare type of motorcycle helmet with a sideways opening at the mouth and jaw.
Just after he was seen, a gunman attacked the Iraqi-British Al-Hilli family in their maroon-coloured BNW estate car in a lay-by at the end of a steeply winding forest road near the village of Chevaline. Saad al-Hilli, 50, a satellite engineer from Surrey, his wife, Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were shot repeatedly. A local cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, was found lying dead beside their car, shot several times in the head and body.
September 2012: Police guard the road to the spot where Saad al-Hilli and his family were killedSeven-year-old Zainab al-Hilli was found alive outside the car, beaten savagely about the head and face and wounded by a gunshot in her shoulder. Her sister, Zeena, aged 4, was found eight hours after the killings,, unharmed but terrified, hiding under her dead mother's legs.
The murders have generated several official lines of inquiry and a host of wild speculations but their motive has never been clear. The only other person arrested during an 18 months long, joint French-British investigation was Mr Al-Hilli's older brother, Zaid.
He was questioned by Surrey police last year about a quarrel with his brother over their father's Pounds 800,000 will but was released without charge. Surrey police said last month that there was no evidence to link him with the killings.
The Annecy prosecutor, Mr Maillaud, said last September, on the anniversary of the massacre, that the investigation team was also looking at the possibility of connections with Iraqi politics or "industrial espionnage" linked to Mr Al-Hill's work as a satellite engineer.
Mr Maillaud played down the possibility that the killings were the work of a lone psychopath. He also dismissed the possibility that the local cyclist, Sylvain Moller was the real target.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

From http://www.theweek.co.uk/europe/57368/al...-al-hillis

ERIC DEVOUASSOUX, the "taciturn mountain man" arrested on Monday by police investigating the September 2012 murder of the British-Iraqi al-Hilli family near Lake Annecy, has been cleared of any involvement in the crime. As a result, policy custody was officially lifted this morning.
However, Devouassoux remains in custody under new terms while police investigate whether he should be charged for arms trafficking, the local website, Le Dauphine, reports.
In searching his property for the murder weapon used to kill the al-Hillis and the cyclist Sylvain Mollier, police found a cache of World War Two weapons and other munitions. They later found more of the same at the home of a friend of his, who was also taken into custody.

and

ANOTHER blow for those hoping the French might have caught the murderer of the al-Hilli family: the DNA of Eric Devouassoux does not match the DNA found at the scene of the crime.

[David Guyatt]

From http://www.theweek.co.uk/europe/57368/al...-al-hillis

ERIC DEVOUASSOUX, the "taciturn mountain man" arrested on Monday by police investigating the September 2012 murder of the British-Iraqi al-Hilli family near Lake Annecy, has been cleared of any involvement in the crime. As a result, policy custody was officially lifted this morning.
However, Devouassoux remains in custody under new terms while police investigate whether he should be charged for arms trafficking, the local website, Le Dauphine, reports.
In searching his property for the murder weapon used to kill the al-Hillis and the cyclist Sylvain Mollier, police found a cache of World War Two weapons and other munitions. They later found more of the same at the home of a friend of his, who was also taken into custody.

and

ANOTHER blow for those hoping the French might have caught the murderer of the al-Hilli family: the DNA of Eric Devouassoux does not match the DNA found at the scene of the crime.

Interesting Carsten.

I can't stop thinking that Annecy was (I believe) the former HQ of Gladio.