Al Hilli/Mollier Murders Chevaline 2012
Another bite at the cherry?
Apparently yet another 'reconstruction' of the events that took place in a mountain layby on the 5th September, 2012 is to be held. (See 'the Connextion' article below)
I have written a great deal about this case and what appears to be intentional confusion surrounding it. I am left wondering why it has take more tha twelve years to even get the facts and chronology straight? Sheer incompetence surely cannot explain it?
As I pointed out at the time, and I have not come across anyone else who has stated it, let alone explained it, though explanation must have been straightforward, the case kicked off with what proved to be a very big lie!
The lie was significant and never explained, namely that British cyclist Brett Martin, first on the scene, reported the incident at 3.48 pm when he couldn't have. That initial call must have been recorded by the French emergency services but has never been released. If it was made by someone other than Brett Martin, who was it? Could it have been the killer(s)?
I do not intend to go over old ground. (My earlier articles can be easily accessed by using the search facility on the Blog) but just a few salient points about the people and vehicles we know were in the vicinity at the time.
Neither the French or British investigators have given a clear and definitive version of who and what they were. Indeed some seem to have been deliberately witheld for various periods of time. This is hard to explain unless the purpose was indeed to cause confusion and cover-up.
The group of three - a man and two women - to whom Martin reported the incident about twenty or thirty minutes after discovering it, were not mentioned for days. Questions still surround them and how it happened.
The man on the motor bike, stopped and questioned further up the pass was inexplicably not released for over a year. It was said he had an alibi that cleared him but it has still not been revealed at what time he must have passed the lay-by. It is complicated by the fact that the forestry workers reported a motor bike at the scene when they passed.
And that leads on to the forestry workers in vehicles - two vehicles as far as I can gather - that passed by the layby at the critical time. No doubt with their pseudo-policing role they are observant and keep notes of the people and vehicles they see, even as it is clear interviewing them if they are aware of infringements. Yet amazingly this crucial primary evidence has never been revealed.
Then as we see below, there was actually a second British cyclist who was there. We know absolutely nothing about him (if it was a him) and what he or she saw. That is quite extraordinary given the circumstances.
Both the British and French police, at different times, reported on a large 4x4 BMW or similar leaving the scene, yet it was never traced. At least that is the official version. More importantly despite this vehicle presumably being at the parking lot - for where else could it have been - it was never factored in to the official hypothesis of what happened. Instead only a 'lone gunman' explanation was proffered up.
Suspiciously the French Prosecutor refused to consider Mollier was a target or involved in a pre-arranged meeting, despite being shot no less than five times. All the occupants of the car were not only multiply shot, but in a very professional manner that suggested military training or at least criminal proficiency.
Both Said al Hilli and Mollier were both outside when they were shot at though Said managed to get back in the car where the fatal shots were fired. (Of course his eldest daughter Zainab, 8, was also outside and remained there injured) Mollier was some distance from his parked bike so the most obvious assumption is that the two were meeting and conversing, but this has never been admitted. Finger prints, let alone DNA should have revealed if Mollier was actually inside the car at any time.
We are led to believe only one old Luger was used yet twenty five casings were found, meaning it would have had to be reload at least three times as it holds only eight in the casette. (Initially a Skorpion sub-machine gun and Serbian criminals was stated to be the case!) Lets hope that in this latest reconstruction they actually try to act out the approved theory to see if it is even feasible.
Who knows rather like the JFK assassination they may discover it isn't and a better explanation has to be found?
'The Connexion'
FRENCH NEWS IN ENGLISH SINCE 2002
https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/british-alps-murders-new-reconstruction-to-take-place/683717
British Alps murders: new reconstruction to take place
The case of the Chevaline killings remains unsolved more than 12 years later
A new reconstruction into the murder of three Britons and a French man in the mountain village
of Chevaline is set to take place, as investigators continue to work on the case.
On September 5, 2012, three members of a British family of Iraqi origin and a passing cyclist
were found shot dead on the Combe d'Ire forest road in Chevaline, Haute-Savoie
(Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes).
The father, Saad al-Hilli, 50, an Iraqi-born British engineer; his wife Iqbal, 47; and mother-in-law,
Suhaila al-Allaf, 74 were killed by bullets to the head, and found in the family BMW. The couple’s two daughters - aged four and seven at the time - were present and found hiding in the car. One of them was injured, and the other unhurt.
A cyclist – Sylvain Mollier, 45, a father from the local area, who appeared to have no connections
to the family – was also killed, having been shot seven times.
The murders are thought to have taken place between 3.29pm and 3.40pm, and 21 bullets were
fired in total.
Cold case reconstruction
The reconstruction will take place on October 17, organised by the Nanterre cold-case judge in
charge of the case, and gendarmerie at the Chambéry research unit. It will take place at a disused
air base in the Île-de-France region.
The aim of the reconstruction, and the potentially-new information on which it may be based,
have not been made public at this stage. The victims’ lawyers have been summoned, but it is not
clear if any of the witnesses have been called to take part.
These include a second cyclist, also from England, who arrived at
the car park immediately after the killings, and a motorcyclist
from Lyon, who passed by the site just before the murders.
‘A sign of the investigating judge's perseverance’
The surviving daughters’ uncle, Zaid al-Hilli, has said that he welcomes the new reconstruction,
and “sees this initiative as an encouraging sign of the investigating judge's perseverance”
.
The case has already been the subject of several reconstructions, with investigators having
forensically considered the possible movements of the victims and witnesses on several occasions.
On September 30, 2021, almost all witnesses were summoned for a general re-enactment. Some
statements revealed small inconsistencies, including the timing of the motorcyclist’s passing, and
whether he was in the car park at the time of the shooting. He was taken into custody at the time,
but later released when this scenario was ruled out.
Other investigative leads include searches for the murder weapon, which has never been found.
Ballistics experts have established that the killer used a very distinctive gun; a collector's pistol
used by the Swiss army in the 1930s. It was a Luger P06-29, calibre 7.65 parabellum.
Extensive forensic examinations have narrowed the search to a series of just 940 pistols, which
were manufactured in 1935.
Investigators are also awaiting the results of DNA tests and new analyses of fingerprints.
