Claygate family murdered in Alps were not gunman's primary target, ex-Surrey Police detective says
The massacre of a Claygate family on holiday in the French Alps has baffled detectives for 10 years, and at one point led to the arrest of a Chessington man who is the brother of one of the victims. A decade later, the case is still unsolved and is the topic of
a three-part Channel 4 documentary beginning on Sunday night (June 26).
The questions about
the case are still numerous: Why was the family targeted? How did the mystery gunman track them down to the remote mountain spot near Lake Annecy they had driven to on a spontaneous trip? And what of the local cyclist shot dead alongside them?
Now a former detective on the case says the cyclist was the more likely intended target – with the British-Iraqi family killed as witnesses to his assassination. Ex-DCI Mark Preston was the senior investigating officer for
Surrey Police on the murder of Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila, 74.
Now Mark, who has since left the police, fears crucial lines of enquiry in the case were closed too soon. Ahead of a three-part documentary, Murder in the Alps, starting on Channel 4 on Sunday (June 26), he said:
"Why were the al-Hillis killed? My view is that it was to cover and confuse any investigation, that Mollier was the target. That’s why the gunman used so many bullets. Whoever was in that car park was going to die."
(..)
Mark said: "With no motive against Saad or Iqbal being the target, and the evidence at the scene not suggesting the al-Hillis were the target, we’re then left with two theories: one is a lone gunman, or that Mollier was the target. I do think that the depth to which we delved into the al-Hillis got to the point where we could absolutely prove that they were not the targets. With Mollier, there were still questions."
(...)
"I think the gunman, in a sense, struck lucky in the amount of confusion caused by the make-up of the British-Iraqi family who happened to be on holiday. It massively helps the killer. They were shot in an execution-style, the daughter was attacked, and on the face of it anybody would imagine they were the intended targets, with Mollier being a witness, rather than taking out one individual and dispatching potentially four witnesses."
He hopes the documentary might prompt someone who knows what really happened to come forward. He added: "I was very surprised and disappointed we never got to thoroughly see the investigation against Mollier. There was a lot of reassurance from the French that they had undertaken a thorough investigation of Mollier being the intended target, but I never saw the documentary proof that that was the case. Certainly not to the same extent that we'd dealt with the al-Hillis.
"I think that time can be a critical factor in solving a crime like this. I feel somebody somewhere knows what happened. Time may prompt them to tell the police. Somebody’s guilt about two orphaned children, and the extraordinary stress to Zaid – who has lost his brother and been judged because he is of British-Iraqi ancestry – could prompt someone to do the right thing. That’s the hope."
BBM
I agree that the presence of the al Hilli family with their background did confuse the investigation since there was a lot to investigate about them. But I'm having trouble with the idea that they would have been killed as a cover-up. There are easier ways to kill a cyclist than shooting him, and no cover-up would be needed, nor would the perp have to leave a trail of bullet casings.
"Why were the al-Hillis killed? My view is that it was to cover and confuse any investigation, that Mollier was the target. That’s why the gunman used so many bullets. Whoever was in that car park was going to die."
This is an odd way of reasoning IMO. Imagine you are a killer, waiting for your target to pass by on a bike. (You cannot be sure he will take that road and there is no network at the top so no one can give you an alert, but that is a different story). A car full of people arrives at the spot, and you go: hey great way to confuse the investigation! I'll shoot them all! Oh, a little girl! BAM! Thanks heavens no other car came up this way because I've run out of bullets!
Eeh....
IMO this person would have been placed in secluded psychiatric care long ago.