8 September 2012
Last updated at 12:47 GMT
Police search home of Alps dead
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France shootings: Police search Saad al-Hilli home
French detectives are being assisted by officers from Surrey Police
A
police search operation is under way at the Surrey home of a British man
shot dead in the French Alps along with his wife and two others.
Surrey Police have begun examining the home of Saad al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, ahead of the arrival of French police.French police have also asked Italian and Swiss counterparts to help them in their hunt for those responsible.
Meanwhile, two relatives have gone to France to comfort Mr al-Hilli's daughters, who remain in hospital.
The man and woman arrived in France on Friday night, accompanied by a British social worker, and are expected to see four-year-old Zeena later.
Her sister, seven-year-old Zainab, remains in a medically-induced coma in Grenoble University Hospital after being shot and beaten.
The girls are believed to be the only witnesses to Wednesday's killings, carried out near the popular tourist destination of Lake Annecy, and are under police protection.
Mr al-Hilli's daughters are believed to be the only witnesses to Wednesday's killings
French prosecutor Eric Maillaud has said that a possible dispute over money between Mr al-Hilli and his brother, Zaid, is one of the lines of inquiry in the investigation.
Zaid al-Hilli had told UK police there was no dispute over "financial matters", and when interviewed by French officers it would be as a "witness", Mr Maillaud said.
Franco-British inquiry Three police officers from France are thought to have arrived in the UK already to investigate the shootings, and a fourth officer is due to arrive later.
The most senior of the four, Colonel Marc de Tarle, who heads the National Gendarmerie Criminal Affairs Bureau, was the first to arrive.
The requests by French police for assistance from neighbouring Italy and Switzerland make this a major international murder inquiry.
"French investigators clearly fear whoever was responsible for Wednesday's killings is no longer in France," our correspondent said.
Continue reading the main story
Saad al-Hilli and his family arrive at
the Solitaire du Lac camp site on Monday. Close to the shores of Lac
Annecy, in the Haute Savoie region of France, the area is popular with
British tourists. They pitch their tents next to their caravan, shown
above.
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The search of the al-Hilli home is part of efforts to gather background information about the family.
The BBC understands the house was originally owned by Saad al-Hilli's parents and later left to him by his mother in her will.Mr Maillaud said: "Up until now the police in Britain were guaranteeing the safety of the house but now it's a Franco-British inquiry that is starting and we can now enter the house of Mr al-Hilli."
Mr al-Hilli's wife, Iqbal, and a woman thought to be his 74-year-old mother-in-law, were killed during the attack.
The fourth victim, a cyclist whose body was found near the car after apparently stumbling across the attack, has been named as 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier.
Mr Maillaud said Zeena - who spent eight hours hiding in the car with the bodies before being found by officers - had identified her family and described the "fury" and "terror" of the attack to French police.
The child said she was between her mother and the older woman, who has not yet been named, and hid under her mother's skirt when the shooting started.
Vehicle sightings The older sister, Zainab, was found close to the car by a British cyclist who discovered the murder scene and alerted the authorities.
The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Annecy, said: "Prosecutors hope that if she recovers, she may provide the key to what happened here in this tranquil corner of France, and who is to blame."
During a press conference on Friday, Mr Maillaud confirmed that each of the victims had at least one bullet in the head, and about 25 shots were fired in total - more than originally thought.
This has led investigators to believe that more than one gun was used in the killings, possibly by more than one attacker.
They 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. But Mr Maillaud pointed out that such vehicles were common during the tourist season in a mountainous region.
COPY http://www.bbc.co.uk/
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