[ad_1]
Two young British women who survived the horrific shooting of their family in France eight years ago will be interviewed again in an attempt to solve the mystery.
Zainab al Hilli was seven years old and her sister Zeena four when witnessed the murder of his parents, grandmother and a passing cyclist in the French Alps.
The killer has never been identified and various theories were explored, but the motive for the bloodbath on a mountain road near the picturesque town of Annecy in September 2012 was not established.
Saad al Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and his mother Suhaila al Allaf, 74, were killed in the attack in which a lone gunman fired 25 bullets at the family’s parked car.
Saad al Hilli was shot dead in the French Alps
Zainab, now 15, and Zeena, 12, were placed in the care of other members of her family who are of Iraqi origin.
Annecy Prosecutor Veronique Denizot said: “The British judicial authorities have given permission for the girls, Al-Hilli’s two daughters, to be heard again.
“The eldest daughter was originally heard when she left the hospital in Grenoble after the events, and she offered certain details, to the investigators, to the magistrates involved in this file.”
Zainab survived after being shot in the shoulder and hit in the head. They found her stumbling on the nearby road.
Zeena was discovered huddled under the legs of her dead mother in the back of the car.
Ms. Denizot said, “If the kids can talk again, they can offer new items, maybe they have new things to say that will help.
“Until now they have been judged as too traumatized and in the wrong psychological state.”
Police officers from the UK and France have been investigating the killings.
Ms Denizot said that “the slightest new memory” of one of the girls could be enough to move the stalled investigation forward again.
“Perhaps a detail, a small element that can reopen the investigation. It is something that we would like to achieve with the help of the British authorities.”
The family was on a camping trip and their BMW was parked in a parking lot next to a forest when they were attacked for no apparent reason.
One theory suggested that Mr. al Hilli had been targeted for his work as an engineer, while another focused on a dispute over a family will, but no definite motive was established. A local dispute was considered the most probable and the family was simply and innocently caught up in it.
[ad_2]