The unsolved murder of a British family in the French Alps is being transferred to a specialist cold case review unit after a UK expert concluded the attack was completely random.
Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife, Iqbal, 47, and his mother-in-law, Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were all killed in their BMW car in September 2012 in a case that has baffled detectives in France.
The couple’s daughters, Zeena, 4, and Zainab, 7, both survived the attack in which Sylvain Mollier, a French cyclist, was also killed.
The four victims were discovered by Brett Martin, a British ex-RAF pilot and resident in France, while he was out riding his bicycle.
The first person he saw when he stumbled on the horrific scene was seven-year-old Zainab, who had been shot in the shoulder and pistol-whipped by her attacker.
Later, after the police had arrived, four-year-old Zeena was discovered hiding under the skirt of her dead mother.
Now a British consultant psychologist, who was asked by the French police to help investigate the killing, has prepared a profile of the gunman, the Times reported yesterday.
It concludes that the killer is local, is 99 per cent likely to be a man, and is aged between 30 and 40.
The expert said the attack was an isolated act by someone who could be mentally unstable and living alone.
The French newspaper Le Parisien, reported the unnamed psychologist’s conclusion.
It read: “I envisage the theory that the perpetrator of the Chevaline attacks acted due to their own motives, entirely independent of the victims in this case.”
The family from Surrey, were on holiday near Annecy when they were murdered on a mountain road.
In March 2015 prosecutors said that the cyclist, Mollier, had been identified as an innocent businessman from Lyon.
In January this year a local businessman was arrested but released.
In the immediate aftermath of the slayings, enquiries led police back to Surrey, where they became increasingly convinced that a long-running feud between Saad and his elder brother Zaid could be the motive behind the attack.
The feud between the two siblings had been sparked by their late father’s will and an argument over the inheritance of the house in Claygate, which was where the al-Hillis family lived.
Zaid was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder and after initially being taken in for questioning, he was then released without charge.
Investigators had claimed that even though Zaid had an alibi for the day of the killings, he may have hired a hitman to carry it out on his behalf.
He has always protested his innocence.
At the time of the killings, investigators were keen to trace a motorcyclist seen by witnesses close to the scene.
The motorcycle rider was reported as having a goatee beard and an unusual helmet by French investigators.
An artist’s impression of the man was released to the public and a 48-year-old man was arrested.
Investigators revealed that the man, who lived in the local village of Lathuile, was a former policeman and weapons collector.
But he too was ruled out of proceedings when his DNA and a DNA sample found in the al-Hilli vehicle did not match.
