Alps shooting girl returning to UK

Sep 9 2012

A four-year-old girl who witnessed her parents gunned down in the French Alps is expected to return to the UK later.

Saad al-Hilli, 50, was killed in his car alongside his dentist wife, Iqbal, on Wednesday while the couple's four-year-old daughter Zeena lay undiscovered under her mother's corpse for eight hours.

It is understood Zeena will fly into the UK after two relatives travelled to France alongside a British social worker and family liaison officers from Surrey Police.

The AFP news agency said she would be accompanied home by an aunt and an uncle.

Meanwhile, Zeena's sister Zainab, seven, remains in a medically-induced coma after being shot and beaten.

An older Swedish woman travelling in the car also died in the shooting, with Sylvain Mollier, 45, a French cyclist who apparently stumbled across the attack in the Combe d'Ire forest near Chevaline.

Zeena has spoken to police and confirmed that two of the victims were her parents, but said she did not know the Swedish woman very well.

Police resumed their examination of Mr al-Hilli's mock Tudor property as part of the investigation into the murders that saw each of the four victims shot twice in the head.

Investigators are looking at aspects of Mr al-Hilli's life to try to find a motive for the murders and have been speaking with his brother, named in reports as Zaid Hilli.

Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud said Mr al-Hilli's sibling approached UK police to deny any feud with his brother over money and he would be interviewed along with the rest of the al-Hilli family.