Police hold Saad al-Hilli's brother over Annecy shootings

POLICE in Surrey have arrested a man in connection with the murders of the British-Iraqi al-Hilli family in the French Alps last September.

According to Sky News, the man detained by British police is Zaid al-Hilli, the 54-year-old brother of Saad, one of three members of the family gunned down in an isolated forest car park.

Together with his wife, Ikbal, and mother-in-law Suhaila al-Allaf, Saad al-Hilli was shot at close range as he sat in his car. In addition, the gunman or gunmen murdered a passing cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, who is believed to have come across the crime as he cycled up a forested hill close to Annecy.

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The couple's two young daughters survived the brutal attack although seven-year-old Zainab was shot in the shoulder and beaten around the head as she tried to flee the scene. Four-year-old Zeena was in the back seat of the car at the time of the attack and hid underneath her mother's skirt. Not only did the killer fail to spot her, but it took police eight hours to discover the petrified young girl.

From the moment that news broke of the multiple killings, theories have been rife as to who might have carried out the crime. As Surrey Police set up a joint investigation team to work alongside French police, it was claimed that the murders were linked to the al-Hillis' Iraqi origins.

Saad al-Hilli's late father, Kadhim al-Hilli, left Iraq in the late 1970s when Saddam Hussein was in power, and it was suggested he might have helped deposit one million euros of the dictator's personal fortune in a Swiss bank account.

If that sounded far-fetched, then so did the stories suggesting it was the al-Hillis who were the innocent victims and that the real target was cyclist Sylvain Mollier.

Back in December, the Sunday Times claims, Mollier was embroiled in a bitter dispute with the family of his girlfriend over her parents' profitable pharmacy in Grignon, a small town south of Lake Annecy.

Other theories have included a Serbian hitman and the same tourist-hating serial killer who had shot dead a Belgian man a year earlier as he stretched his legs on a French layby, returning from a camping holiday.

From the beginning, however, the French police, who are leading the investigation, appear to have been interested in Zaid al-Hilli.

On September 7, just two days after the killings, prosecutor Eric Maillaud told reporters: "It seems that there was a dispute between the two brothers about money. This seems to be credible information coming from the British police. The brother will have to be questioned at length. Every lead will be meticulously followed."

Explaining this latest development, Maillaud told French reporters: "We felt there were enough reasons to take him into custody. We need to ask him questions about his schedule, his relationship with his brother and the family inheritance."