Police probe feud as motive for murder in French Alps

Three members of British family killed in France may have been the victims of a contract killing, according to detectives.

Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal and her mother were all shot in the centre of the forehead. A French cyclist was also gunned down.

The Hilli’s seven-year-old daughter Zainab was badly beaten and shot in the shoulder, her four-year-old sister, Zeena hid under the bodies of her dead mother and grandmother for eight hours after the killings until found by police.

The apparently professional nature of the murders have led detectives to probe the possibility that the family were gunned down in an execution-style hit.

Both daughters are under police guard in separate hospitals, amid fears the killer or killers may return to eradicate witnesses.

Police believe the French cyclist was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The bodies were discovered close to Lake Annecy in the French Alps by a British cyclist who arrived at the scene later.

The family, who lived in Surrey, were on holiday at the time.

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