Police search UK home of Alps murder victims

A police operation is under way at the home of a British man shot dead in the French Alps along with his wife and two others.

Surrey Police, accompanied by French officers, have begun examining the home of Iraqi-born Briton Saad Al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, 30km south of London.

Senior French police officer Colonel Marc de Tarle said the investigation into the shootings was likely to be "long and complex".

French officers and a British forensics team are scouring the home of Saad al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, Surrey.

Mr al-Hilli, his wife, a woman thought to be his mother-in-law and a local cyclist were shot twice in the head.

The couple's two daughters survived the attacks and are in hospital in France.

Officers began a detailed search of the family's house on Saturday as part of a bid to establish a motive for the murders.

Surrey Police set up a forensic evidence tent in front of the house ahead of the arrival of French officers.

Speaking outside Woking police station on Saturday, de Tarle said: "We are here within the framework of a request for international mutual help launched by the French judicial authorities towards the British authorities.

"The co-operation is working well and the British police are putting in place all necessary means on a human and a technical level."

Surrey Police assistant chief constable Rob Price said his force would "do all we can in support of the investigation on behalf of our French colleagues".

"Throughout that support, I want to place the emphasis on the victims of this tragic incident and Surrey police, again with our French colleagues, are ensuring that all those who need support will get the support," he said.

Al-Hilli's wife, Iqbal, and a 74-year-old woman who held a Swedish passport and who is reported to be Mr al-Hilli's mother-in-law, were killed during the attack in Chevaline, close to the tourist destination of Lake Annecy on Wednesday.

The fourth victim, a cyclist whose body was found near the car after apparently stumbling across the attack, has been named 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier.

The al-Hillis' four-year-old daughter, Zeena, spent eight hours hiding in the car where her parents died before being found by officers. Police said she had hid under her mother's skirt when the shooting started.

Her sister, seven-year-old Zainab, remains in a medically-induced coma in Grenoble University Hospital after being shot in the shoulder and beaten around the head.

Two relatives of the al-Hilli family have gone to France, accompanied by a British social worker and family-liaison officers from Surrey Police, to comfort the girls.

wo of Al-Hilli's daughters - aged four and seven - who survived the killings, are under police protection in a French hospital.

The girls are believed to be the only witnesses to Wednesday's killings, carried out near the popular tourist destination of Lake Annecy.

Maillaud also said investigators had gleaned little from a "moving" chat on Friday with the four-year-old, who was being looked after at a psychiatric hospital in Grenoble after spending eight hours hiding under bodies in the car.

The seven-year-old was badly beaten and was due to undergo a second operation for severe head injuries at Grenoble University Hospital.

A French cyclist was also found shot dead at the scene on a mountain road near the village of Chevaline, close to the Annecy Lake and the Swiss border.

The man, a young father who lived in the area named Sylvain Mollier, "just happened to be riding by" at the time of the attack, officials said.

French police are looking into reports of a green or dark-coloured four-wheel drive vehicle and a motorcycle, apparently seen by the cyclist who discovered the murder scene.

French police have asked Italian and Swiss counterparts to help them in their hunt for the killers.

French prosecutor Eric Maillaud told a news conference, in Annecy, that the post-mortem examinations had been completed on Friday night.