Alps Murder Case: BBC Panorama Program Suggests Police Cover Up
The BBC’s flagship investigative program, Panorama, alleged in its Monday night broadcast on the Alps murder case, that the killer of British-Iraqi businessman Saad al-Hili probably did not work alone.
The program interviewed the dead man’s brother. He admitted that he had been in a serious dispute with his brother over an inheritance, but declared that he was innocent of any connection to his brother’s murder.
In September 2012, Saad al-Hili was shot and killed, along with his wife and her mother, on a mountain road in the French Alps. His two daughters survived the attack.
Sylvain Mollier, was a cyclist who was also shot near the car. French Police say he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The investigation of this Alps murder case has made little headway over the past year. The Panorama program interviewed two key witnesses who said they saw a motorbike and a BMW 4×4 in the vicinity.
Brett Martin, a former RAF pilot, discovered the horrific murders while on a bike ride. He described that he had seen a motorcyclist riding away from the scene shortly beforehand. This sighting was confirmed by a local forestry worker. The driver of the BMW was described as “slightly bald” with “dark skin and no glasses”.
In June, the British police arrested Zaid al-Hilli, the dead man’s 54-year-old brother on suspicion of being behind the killings. He claimed that French police didn’t check the possibility that the real target was French cyclist Sylvain Mollier.
“They are covering up for someone in France,” Hilli told Panorama.He continued: “Mollier was involved in family disputes and was an outsider to (his) rich family. We are dealing with very powerful local people, they know each other and are in each other’s pockets. They focused attention on us, it has a racist background.”
The police still stick to their assertion that a family inheritance dispute was the motive for the killings since local police were once called to an argument between the brothers at Saad’s house in London, which they had both inherited from their mother
“Every family has disagreements, we mustn’t exaggerate them,” Zaid explained. “Saad had issues, I didn’t really have issues.”
In order to try to clear his name, and to help in the investigation of this Alps murder case, he offered to take a lie detector test. However, he insisted that he would not go to France for questioning because “I don’t trust the French”.
Do you think he is right not to trust the French police after the way they have handled the the killing of his brother? Will the Alps murder case ever be solved? You can tell us your opinion in the comment feed below.
