Police search home of family shot dead in French Alps

CLAYGATE, United Kingdom: French police yesterday searched the house of a British family shot dead in the French Alps this week, a source close to the investigation said.
They are working alongside British forensics officers who have begun searching the family home, a large mock-Tudor fronted house in the quiet commuter village of Claygate in Surrey, some 15 miles (25 km) southwest of London.
The party, including at least one French police officer in civilian clothes, were escorted into the house by a British officer.
Five gendarmes led by Col. Marc de Tarle are in Britain to work on the case, though they did not all visit the family home.
Scene of crime officers have erected a tent outside the front door and wore blue and white overalls, face masks and hair nets as they began the process of searching for evidence.
Carrying clipboards and cameras amd wearing blue gloves, the forensics team started their search as uniformed British police officers stood guard at the entrance gate.
Saad Al-Hilli, a 50-year-old naturalized Briton born in Iraq, his wife Ikbal and his 74-year-old mother-in-law were shot dead in a forest car park in an Alpine tourist area near Annecy in southeast France on Wednesday.
Their seven-year-old daughter Zainab was left for dead and remains in a medically induced coma after being shot and badly beaten in the attack.
Four-year-old daughter Zeena survived the attack, hiding undetected for eight hours under her dead mother’s skirts.
A local man, 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier, was also killed after apparently stumbling across the attack on the family’s car.
All four people killed in the French Alps shooting were shot twice in the head, autopsies have shown, prosecutor Eric Maillaud said yesterday.
“All four were killed by several bullets and all four were hit twice in the head,” Maillaud told a press briefing here.
Maillaud said he would not divulge any details of the ballistic analysis of the bullets recovered from the bodies for fear of compromising the investigation.
Police plan to look at aspects of the family’s lives to try to find a motive for the murders.
A French police source said the French investigators were to be briefed by their British counterparts on local procedures.
The source said the search would be “very long” and would go “beyond the day.”
French and British police were also to meet for a strategy session and to form investigation teams.
Sympathizers and well-wishers have been placing bouquets of flowers and other tributes including teddy-bears brought by children to the house.
Surrey Police said they were assisting the French authorities as they carry out a “complex” investigation.
“As part of this, the force is facilitating a visit by French investigators to conduct inquiries in the UK,” a spokesman said.
“We are unable to confirm any details around the investigation and it is inappropriate to make any further comment at this time.”