French Alps Shooting: Three Main Lines Of Investigation

Investigators of the shooting of a British family in the French Alps last week have said they are following three main leads.

A week after the bodies of Surrey-based engineer Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf were found in a car near Lake Annecy, with a passing cyclist also shot dead nearby, prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the investigation was focusing on three factors: an alleged family dispute, Saad al-Hilli's profession as a contractor for a satellite technology company in Surrey, and his origins in Iraq.

Key witness testimony from the couple's seven-year-old daughter, Zainab, who was shot and badly beaten during the attack, has yet to be heard.

Maillaud said investigators are waiting to speak to her but doctors have not yet given the go ahead. Doctors have said she remains in a "delicate" state of health after being brought out of a medically induced coma at the hospital in Grenoble where she is under armed guard.

Her four-year-old sister, Zeena, who survived the attack physically unscathed by hiding under her mother's legs, has returned home to Britain.

Maillaud and one of the two investigating judges responsible for the case are due to visit the UK on Thursday in order, he said, to "further develop and strengthen the quality of co-operation" between the investigators in the two countries. He will visit the Hillis' mock-Tudor home in Claygate, Surrey, and meet police officers and officials from the Crown Prosecution Service.

(H)