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Tuerie de Chevaline : un motard passé de témoin "qui n'a rien vu" à suspect
Chevaline massacre: a motorcyclist goes from witness "who saw nothing" to suspect
Nine years after the mysterious murder of the Al-Hilli family and cyclist Sylvain Mollier in a forest in the Alps, a man who had previously been cleared of any wrongdoing was placed in police custody yesterday, Wednesday. In 2015, he claimed to have seen and heard nothing on the day of the massacre. Justice seeks tofind out if he really told everything.
It looks like an interrogation of the last resort ... In this unusual investigation that has frustrated the investigators for nine years, the custody of a biker, already cleared in 2015, is the logical continuation of the reconstitution carried out by the new investigating judge in charge of the Chevaline case, last September 21. On that day, the magistrate cordoned off the area of the Bauges forest massif, in the hills above Lake Annecy, in an attempt to locate everyone near the scene of the massacre.
On 5 September 2012, it was 3.44 pm when an English cyclist, William Brett Martin, rode into the Martinet car parking area. The scene of the crime has something of a thriller about it: a little girl staggers and collapses. A cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, has been shot on his bike. And in the BMW estate car with UK plates, an English family of Iraqi origin, the father, the mother-in-law and the mother in the back seat were shot twice in the head. What scriptwriter would have dared to imagine this last detail: eight hours after the crime, a four-year-old girl was found huddled in her mother's legs in the back of the car, having not dared to move in terror? Unharmed, but in shock.
No witnesses. But two guards from the ONF (National Forestry Commission) will come forward. A little further up in the woods, they checked a motorcyclist with an unusual helmet, and asked him to leave the area, which is forbidden to motorised traffic. A sketch of this bearded biker was circulated everywhere. The man was the number one suspect. He was finally found in 2015, thanks to the meticulous work of the gendarmes, by cross-referencing the phones in the vicinity and the owners of a rather unusual helmet.
Very bad point for him, this biker, a company director living in the Lyon region, never spontaneously came forward. When questioned, the man said he was stunned. He was in the region that day for paragliding, and did not cross the path of either the decimated English family or a possible killer. He saw nothing, heard nothing. He is, he says, neither a gun collector nor a shooter. And nothing in his life seems to link him to the British of Iraqi origin who were shot dead in the car park, or to Sylvain Mollier, the local cyclist who went to stretch his legs during his paternity leave. At the time, the biker, a family man, was released without charge.
Since Wednesday, he is back in police custody, "for time verification", said the Annecy prosecutor. A polite judicial way of suggesting that he may have lied during his interrogations in 2015.
In theory, a thousand and one questions can be asked: in view of the timing of the re-enactment last September, did this man necessarily see or hear something, which he would have chosen to keep silent in 2015, for fear of possible reprisals? Could he be linked to the possible killer, playing a role in the massacre? Could he himself be the author of the killing, and if so, for what motive?
The lawyer of this company director, Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi, assures that the custody is "not justified". This man "does not have, at any time, the profile of someone who could have committed in cold blood, with premeditation, such a murder", he said, referring to his fear of "the manufacture of a culprit."
In this extraordinary case, which is the biggest French criminal enigma today, the gendarmes of the research section of Chambéry have been unable to solve it for nearly ten years. A suspect, a former legionnaire, municipal policeman and arms collector, committed suicide after being taken into custody.
It is hard to imagine a more difficult investigation: no witnesses to a crime scene in the middle of the forest; no connection between the victims, English holidaymakers on one side and a local cyclist on the other; a single killer for four targets, with a handgun that is more of a collector's item than a hired killer's weapon; and above all, no known motive... It was as if, on this September 5, 2012, fate had devilishly played its part, placing a cold-blooded killer in front of circumstantial victims on this car park of Le Martinet, in the middle of the forest. Judges and gendarmes in charge of the case keep on asking these questions without any answer, and then come up against the same enigma: why did they have to be murdered?
Did the English family and the cyclist who came up behind them see or disturb anything? The question leads back to the biker in the forest. How can he, in all these scenarios, have seen and heard nothing at all?
BBM
With Brett Martin, the English cyclist, it was checked if he could have heard anything, and it turned out that shots could not be heard from the location where he was. Would someone wearing a helmet hear shots even if he was nearby?
And how come he did not see anything? If he was driving away, downhill from the parking lot, surely he must have noticed the al-Hilli car?
Daily Mail from January 13, 2013
French Alps shooting latest: Mystery biker named as prime suspect after he was seen near Alpine layby | Daily Mail Online
The 53-year-old ex RAF serviceman [Brett Martin] has told French police that he passed a motorbike driving away from the isolated lay-by where the slaughter took place on September 5th last year.
Between three and five minutes later he discovered a BMW containing the bodies of Surrey engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74.
Lying next to the car was the murdered French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, while the al-Hilli’s daughter, seven-year-old Zainab, was stumbling around outside having been shot in the shoulder and pistol whipped.
----
The description is similar to that of a motorbike seen around the time of the murders on a stretch of private road at Col de Cherel, four miles further up the mountain.
BBM
Chevaline massacre: a motorcyclist goes from witness "who saw nothing" to suspect
Nine years after the mysterious murder of the Al-Hilli family and cyclist Sylvain Mollier in a forest in the Alps, a man who had previously been cleared of any wrongdoing was placed in police custody yesterday, Wednesday. In 2015, he claimed to have seen and heard nothing on the day of the massacre. Justice seeks tofind out if he really told everything.
It looks like an interrogation of the last resort ... In this unusual investigation that has frustrated the investigators for nine years, the custody of a biker, already cleared in 2015, is the logical continuation of the reconstitution carried out by the new investigating judge in charge of the Chevaline case, last September 21. On that day, the magistrate cordoned off the area of the Bauges forest massif, in the hills above Lake Annecy, in an attempt to locate everyone near the scene of the massacre.
On 5 September 2012, it was 3.44 pm when an English cyclist, William Brett Martin, rode into the Martinet car parking area. The scene of the crime has something of a thriller about it: a little girl staggers and collapses. A cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, has been shot on his bike. And in the BMW estate car with UK plates, an English family of Iraqi origin, the father, the mother-in-law and the mother in the back seat were shot twice in the head. What scriptwriter would have dared to imagine this last detail: eight hours after the crime, a four-year-old girl was found huddled in her mother's legs in the back of the car, having not dared to move in terror? Unharmed, but in shock.
No witnesses. But two guards from the ONF (National Forestry Commission) will come forward. A little further up in the woods, they checked a motorcyclist with an unusual helmet, and asked him to leave the area, which is forbidden to motorised traffic. A sketch of this bearded biker was circulated everywhere. The man was the number one suspect. He was finally found in 2015, thanks to the meticulous work of the gendarmes, by cross-referencing the phones in the vicinity and the owners of a rather unusual helmet.
Very bad point for him, this biker, a company director living in the Lyon region, never spontaneously came forward. When questioned, the man said he was stunned. He was in the region that day for paragliding, and did not cross the path of either the decimated English family or a possible killer. He saw nothing, heard nothing. He is, he says, neither a gun collector nor a shooter. And nothing in his life seems to link him to the British of Iraqi origin who were shot dead in the car park, or to Sylvain Mollier, the local cyclist who went to stretch his legs during his paternity leave. At the time, the biker, a family man, was released without charge.
Since Wednesday, he is back in police custody, "for time verification", said the Annecy prosecutor. A polite judicial way of suggesting that he may have lied during his interrogations in 2015.
In theory, a thousand and one questions can be asked: in view of the timing of the re-enactment last September, did this man necessarily see or hear something, which he would have chosen to keep silent in 2015, for fear of possible reprisals? Could he be linked to the possible killer, playing a role in the massacre? Could he himself be the author of the killing, and if so, for what motive?
The lawyer of this company director, Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi, assures that the custody is "not justified". This man "does not have, at any time, the profile of someone who could have committed in cold blood, with premeditation, such a murder", he said, referring to his fear of "the manufacture of a culprit."
In this extraordinary case, which is the biggest French criminal enigma today, the gendarmes of the research section of Chambéry have been unable to solve it for nearly ten years. A suspect, a former legionnaire, municipal policeman and arms collector, committed suicide after being taken into custody.
It is hard to imagine a more difficult investigation: no witnesses to a crime scene in the middle of the forest; no connection between the victims, English holidaymakers on one side and a local cyclist on the other; a single killer for four targets, with a handgun that is more of a collector's item than a hired killer's weapon; and above all, no known motive... It was as if, on this September 5, 2012, fate had devilishly played its part, placing a cold-blooded killer in front of circumstantial victims on this car park of Le Martinet, in the middle of the forest. Judges and gendarmes in charge of the case keep on asking these questions without any answer, and then come up against the same enigma: why did they have to be murdered?
Did the English family and the cyclist who came up behind them see or disturb anything? The question leads back to the biker in the forest. How can he, in all these scenarios, have seen and heard nothing at all?
BBM
With Brett Martin, the English cyclist, it was checked if he could have heard anything, and it turned out that shots could not be heard from the location where he was. Would someone wearing a helmet hear shots even if he was nearby?
And how come he did not see anything? If he was driving away, downhill from the parking lot, surely he must have noticed the al-Hilli car?
Daily Mail from January 13, 2013
French Alps shooting latest: Mystery biker named as prime suspect after he was seen near Alpine layby | Daily Mail Online
The 53-year-old ex RAF serviceman [Brett Martin] has told French police that he passed a motorbike driving away from the isolated lay-by where the slaughter took place on September 5th last year.
Between three and five minutes later he discovered a BMW containing the bodies of Surrey engineer Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74.
Lying next to the car was the murdered French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, while the al-Hilli’s daughter, seven-year-old Zainab, was stumbling around outside having been shot in the shoulder and pistol whipped.
----
The description is similar to that of a motorbike seen around the time of the murders on a stretch of private road at Col de Cherel, four miles further up the mountain.
BBM
