The brother of a Brit murdered with his family in the French Alps has demanded a probe into police who bungled the investigation. Zaid Al-Hilli spoke out as cold case officers revisit one of the century’s most sensational unsolved murders. His brother Saad, 50, an Iraq-born satellite engineer, was shot dead at the wheel of his BMW while on holiday in September 2012. Also blasted twice in the head were dentist wife Iqbal, 47, and her mum Suhaila, 74.
The couple’s seven-year-old daughter was left for dead while her four-year-old sister survived by hiding under her mother. A French cyclist on the remote mountain road near Lake Annecy was also shot execution-style. Now Saad’s brother wants an investigation into a “cover-up” by “diabolical” local police.
Zaid – named by French police as a suspect himself – said: “The beginning of the investigation was botched up and not really taken seriously. Look at the mistakes and work out whether they were just mistakes or cover-ups. For me it is the only path to solving what happened. The new cold case investigators, who I think are more independent and crucially not from the local area, should talk to the people who did the investigation at the beginning.”.
The family were given hope when the cold case unit in Paris held a reconstruction in October. Lawyers and police chiefs attended at a disused air base outside Paris. But Zaid revealed that the reconstruction drew blanks – as did a forensic analysis of clothes and 10 cigarette butts found at the scene.
