Pistol in a lake gives hope for French cold case

Exhaustive investigations in France and the UK have left police no closer to understanding who carried out the al-Hilli murders and why. Over the years a series of leads have been pursued then dropped.A British national of Iraqi birth, Saad al-Hilli was holidaying with his family in the picturesque countryside of Lake Annecy in eastern France.On the afternoon of 5 September, his body with those of his wife and mother-in-law were found in their car, its motor still running, on a forest road near the village of Chevaline. A passing cyclist had – like the other victims – been shot through the head.Poignantly, the two al-Hilli daughters, aged four and seven, survived. The older girl had been hit on the head with a pistol butt and was badly hurt. The younger, lying in the car under her mother's skirts, was not discovered till forensic experts began examining the scene many hours later.It was fragments from the pistol butt which enabled police to identify it as a Luger P06. The model is regarded more as a collector's item than a working weapon, which made the theory of a professional hit against the family seem less likely.Lake Annecy is only 50km from Switzerland, where the Luger P06 will have been familiar to older people from their military service. French police said many examples of the gun have been kept by families on either side of the border.Among the theories that have been entertained are that the murders were linked to a family row over money; that they were the work of a motiveless crank; and that the main target was the cyclist.Police were also briefly intrigued by the fact that al-Hilli's wife's first husband – an American – died of a heart attack just hours before the killings in France.