The atrocious murder of a British family in the Alps has been stirring things up for nearly a decade, and it’s not going to end. The man arrested yesterday as a suspect in the investigation has been released for lack of evidence. “I hope my client will never be considered a suspect again,” his lawyer said in a statement.
French authorities arrested a man yesterday in connection with the unsolved 2012 murder of three members of a British family and a cyclist in the French Alps. He had been arrested before, but according to Justice sources in Annecy, his story had holes. His alibi was also checked.
It now appears that the man most likely has nothing to do with the murders. “No charges have been brought against the person who was interrogated,” he said The Guardian the public prosecutor. “His statement and our checks allow us to rule out his participation in the facts. The investigation continues.” The arrest and raid were a rare development in one of France’s most infamous cold case cases. For a moment, a breakthrough was thought of.
The suspect’s lawyer said yesterday that the arrest was unjustified. “The story of this man is still the same: ‘I was walking’. He never came into contact with this family.” According to French media, the suspect is a motorcyclist who was seen by forest workers during the drama. He was already identified and questioned as a witness in 2015, but also turned out to have nothing to do with the murders.
What happened?
Ten years ago in the hamlet of Chevaline, south of Lake Annecy, a 50-year-old Briton of Iraqi descent, his wife and her mother were shot dead in their car. Their two daughters survived the massacre, which closely resembled a professional reckoning. A 45-year-old cyclist, who probably happened to be a witness, was also killed.
The ‘Alpine murder case’ appeared to have been shelved, but the Annecy prosecutor recently said the investigation is still ongoing. Last year, police spoke of a possible connection to a gang of hitmen in Paris. Bullets of the same caliber as those used in Annecy were found in the home of one of the gang members, a former police officer. That could indicate that the cyclist was the actual target, but the facts of the quadruple murder are still shrouded in mystery.
Killer
Police believe the killer was alone that day and used one weapon. It is a pistol used by the Swiss army in the 1920s and 1930s, not the type of weapon used by professional killers.
The elderly girl who survived the attack told police that she and her father were outside the car when the shooting started. When the father was unable to get his daughter into the car, he tried to escape with the vehicle with the rest of the family. But the car got stuck in a verge. The killer then shot the three adult occupants in the head.
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