French Alps murder tapes ‘show hatred between brothers’

Guardian News and Media/London

The Iraqi-born British engineer assassinated at an Alpine beauty spot a year ago kept dozens of hours of recordings of conversations that reveal the level of hatred and violence between him and his brother Zaid, a suspect in the case, French police said.

Saad al-Hilli was murdered near the village of Chevaline in the Haute Savoie, along with his wife, his mother-in-law and a passing cyclist. French police described the killer as a hardened gunman.

The Hillis’ elder daughter, Zainab, then seven, was left for dead with severe head injuries, while her younger sister, Zeena, four, hid under her dead mother’s skirts in the family car.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the documents in the case ran to cubic metres. French police have interviewed about 800 witnesses and taken 3,000 statements.

British police said they had taken 560 statements, had 1,600 exhibits, carried out 2,000 “actions” and had 1,300 reports.

The inquiry, which has led to 80 international demands for police assistance in 20 countries, has been officially extended for another year.

Maillaud said: “This affair is very complex and international. What we need is proof and not scenarios or hypotheses. We need something that will stand up before a jury.”

French police say Saad al-Hilli, 50, went on holiday with his family to a campsite carrying an extraordinary amount of documentation as well as hard drives, computers and audio recordings relating to the dispute with his brother Zaid over their late father’s estate, estimated at about EUR4mn-5mn.

Colonel Benoit Vinnemann, who is leading the inquiry, said many of the recordings were in Arabic. They showed the level of suspicion and hatred between the two brothers and the depth of the conflict, which investigators described as “almost an obsession” for Saad al-Hilli.

The gunman, using a pre-war Swiss-made Luger P06 7.65mm Parabellum, fired 21 times, including twice into the heads of the three members of the Hilli family and five times into the cyclist, Syvain Mollier.

The killer shot from outside the vehicle, a maroon-coloured BMW estate, shattering the windows, but without scratching the bodywork.

In all, 17 of the shots hit a human target. With each gun magazine carrying eight bullets, the assassin would have had to reload the weapon at least twice. “I would not use the term professional gunman ... but he was certainly what I would call a hardened gunman, experienced in situations of stress,” Maillaud said. “All we know is that there was one killer and he knew what he was doing: he was able to hit a moving target and change magazines, but we have no idea of his exact profile,” he added.