Update [2012-10-21 1:41:50 by Oui]: I changed the word ‘scientist’ in title to ‘Cézus/Areva [production plant] manager’ to reflect bits of information about Sylvain Mollier’s job with 20 years experience. Today’s ballistics and forensics report is pointing to SM as primary traget in the killings. See French Alps Murder Mystery’s Forensic Breakthrough. The investigators have “wasted” 6 weeks to search private life of Saad al-Hilli and his family.

 
[Update 2012-10-06 15:08 EST by Oui] ::
More than 800 1,000 1,500 2,000 comments at French blog about the Annecy Alps killings –
Chevaline …the forgotten victim … Sylvain Mollier … Drummond massacre 1952 … so similar … latest a secret Swiss bank account.   New thread Part 2.

An ugly assassination gone awry, three members of British family on vacation in Chevaline killed by an assassin. Three adults were shot through the head as they were sitting in their BMW Estate with running engine on a parking lot. One daughter was shot and blundgeoned to near death, who is now in a Geneva hospital and a 4-year old girl hid under her mother’s dead body for eight hours before French police found her.

Update [2012-09-11 09:50AM EST by Oui]: Alps murder witness: ‘It was like a scene from a film’

Speaking for the first time on Tuesday to French newspaper Aujourd’hui France / Le Parisien [EN], the witness, known as Philippe D, recalled realising something terrible had happened when their car was approached by a panicked cyclist – the British former RAF serviceman who had discovered the crime scene.

Update [2012-09-08 13:42 EST by Oui]: My comment – French Cyclist Sylvain Mollier Was Killed First

See Guardian article, 10 bullet casings were found under the BMW Estate. This determines first shooting took place where cyclist was killed. Most likely an ambush as the small path ended for cars and motorbikes a few meters beyond parking area. A small steep path continues beyond road barricade only for cyclists and pedestrians. French cyclist must have been overtaken by motorbike who blocked his path, a Peugeot 4×4 followed and blocked escape route. The al-Hilli family were confronted with assassination and witnessed the incident. He backed out of parked position and swirved a U-turn on parking space, ended up against the hill where rear wheel sank in soft shoulder. Saad al-Hilli may have tried to run over gunman as that is the spot where first killing took place. The 7 year-old opened door and tried to escape as gunman fired through window killing father, mother and elderly lady presumed a grandmother. The 4 year-old already hid underneath skirt of mother out of fear and she heard screams. The BMW ended as found in position where the first killing took place. [See photo’s at the scene by Daily Mail] The British cyclist soon found the wounded 7 year-old who stumbled and fell. He treated her by positioning her body for survival. Went to the car with running engine and smashed the window to turn ignition off. He saw the three bodies and later the French cyclist near but beyond the car.

Overview – Massacre in the French Alps

Alps shootings: murders have ‘hallmarks of a professional assassination’

(Guardian) – Maillaud said police had found a further 10 bullet casings following the removal of the al-Hilli family’s BMW estate car from the isolated car park at the end of the narrow and winding Route de la Combe d’Ire, bringing the total number of casings to 25 and suggesting there may have been more than one weapon or gunman.

“This bears of the hallmarks of a professional assassination and there was an absolute determination to kill shown by the bullets in the head of the victims, and the savagery of the attack on the elder girl. It does seem like an ambush, but we cannot be sure at this stage that it was a professional assassination.

BBC News Video – Alps shooting: victims ‘shot twice in head’

I find no link to Saad al-Hilli’s family (Claygate in Surrey) or business enterprise that could warrant such an attack. [Perhaps his hi-tech free-lance job at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. may offer a lead] A robbery or carjacking is not likely with so much violence. I’m looking at a French cyclist who was also killed at the scene. His name has been released as Sylvain Mollier who works at a nuclear factory of Areva.

Areva  is a nuclear multinational which is also involved with uranium enrichment and has ties with Eurodif. During the reign of the Shah, Iran acquires a 10% stake in Eurodif.  

Nevertheless, I hope the French gendarmerie will solve these abhorrent killings very soon. The local French press and the British media have full coverage of a murder that stuns the imagination.

[Update] Is there a cover-up in the make or media censorship?
Why does the French investigator Eric Maillaud trumpet the line of investigating a family inheritance row?
Why does the Daily Mail refer the Sylvain Mollier’s job as working at a company producing stainless steel products instead of Areva’s Cezus R&D in zirconium products for the nuclear industry with ties to Iran?

The French Alps assassination. Each of British victims was shot TWICE and cyclist witness FIVE times, police reveal – as search continues for killers’ white 4×4

  • The fact that intense gunfire was heard for less than 30 seconds – and it was so brutally effective – strengthens the theory of experienced hit-men being responsible
  • Saad Al-Hilli, 50, mother Ikbal and her grandmother were all killed – with detectives now saying they were hit with two bullets each
  • A source close to the enquiry said: ‘The elements emerging certainly point towards a professional assassination, with more than one gunman likely to have been involved’
  • A white 4×4 was seen leaving the scene by an RAF veteran and keen cyclist who stumbled across the bloodbath near the village of Chevaline
  • The unidentified Briton has now been hailed as a hero for saving the life of seven-year-old Zainab Al-Hilli in the moments after the forest murders

(Daily Mail) – It also emerged today that police officers are hunting for a white 4×4 which was seen leaving the scene by an RAF veteran and keen cyclist who stumbled across the bloodbath near the beauty spot. The unidentified Briton has now been hailed as a hero for saving the life of seven-year-old Zainab Al-Hilli in the moments after the forest murders.

Mr Al-Hilli, 50, was initially shot once in the forehead as he sat at the wheel of the BMW estate car he had used to drive his family to a caravan holiday to Lake Annecy, in eastern France. Then a second ‘coup de grace’ bullet was apparently used to make sure that Mr Al-Hilli, of Clayton, Surrey, was indeed dead. This is the classic modus operandi of gunmen the world over who are contracted to kill people, whether working for criminal gangs, terrorist groups, or security services.

Intelligence officers from the British Embassy in Paris are said to have been at the scene of the murder hours after it happened. They were tipped off by contacts in the French Interior Ministry as soon as the identity of the car’s owner was confirmed. According to the French TV station Demain, locals described embassy staff as being ‘military types’ and numbering around 20.

Scotland Yard blog – French Alps assassination investigation

Update [2012-09-11 03:45AM EST by Oui]: BBC says 7.65 caliber is outdated

I wrote a comment to the BBC editor that their statement was true and not true. The French prosecutor and magistrates leading the investigation speak of an assassination by a professional gunman. The security agency of a state leaves the 7.65 casings as their mark. Read article Beretta Model 70 and 71—special purpose favorites of the Israeli Mossad and sky marshals.

Ballistics details

The revelation that a single gun was used in the shootings comes after the number of cartridges recovered by detectives led to speculation that there was more than one gunman. But police have not formally revealed how many assailants they believe could have been involved at the scene.

Meanwhile, a gun expert quoted by the AFP news agency, Yves Gollety, president of France’s Chamber of Gunsmiths, said the 7.65mm calibre can be found in a range of “relatively old, even outdated” pistols.

French Alps shootings: single weapon was 7.65mm pistol, say investigators

More updates have been added in the comments section of the diary!
Update [2012-09-06 16:56 EST by Oui]:

Dead cyclist named by French press

(Guardian) – Le Messager reports that the name of the dead cyclist, according to its information, is Sylvain Mollier, from Ugine, approximately 16km from Chevaline. It says he worked in metallurgy for Cezus, a metal manufacturing company [subsidiary of Areva].

His wife, worried when he did not return from his cycle ride, went to a local police station with a photograph of her husband and officers made the link.

    Selon le Dauphiné Libéré, il s’agit de Sylvain Mollier, employé dans l’entreprise “Cezus“, une usine du groupe Areva, basée à Ugine en Savoie.

CEZUS, the global leader on the zirconium market, produces zirconium alloy tubes, bars, and sheets for pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs).

CEZUS has its own R&D center (“CRC”) located in Ugine, France. This center is dedicated to R&D on Zirconium alloys, focusing on process and metallurgy :. It is the cornerstore of innovation and is known worldwide.

Zirconium product manufacturing within AREVA: A strategic element for its customers and the whole nuclear fuel industry [pdf]

The horror and mystery of the Annecy killings

(The Independent) Sept. 6, 2012 – When the British cyclist reached the dirt car-park at the top of the track, he found a scene of unbelievable butchery. A girl of about seven or eight years old staggered towards him and then collapsed. She had head injuries, inflicted by a blunt instrument, and a bullet wound in her shoulder.

The cyclist who had overtaken him minutes before lay dead, shot in the head. The BMW was standing with its motor still running. The British cyclist, a former RAF officer who has a holiday home near by, placed the injured girl in the recovery position on her side. He telephoned the emergency services.

He smashed the driver’s side window of the BMW to cut the ignition and discovered within what a senior French investigator called a “scene of immense savagery”. A man and two women had been shot dead, two of them in the head.

…
The little girl had taken refuge beneath the skirts of her dead mother and grandmother. Local gendarmes did not spot her and sealed off the car while a top-level, crime-scene investigation unit travelled by car and helicopter from Paris. She was discovered only after other campers told investigators that the missing family had two children.

The older girl, Zeitab, aged seven or eight, was saved by the prompt action of the British cyclist. She was in an artificially-induced coma at a hospital in Grenoble last night. Her life was said to be no longer in danger after a series of lengthy operations. The smaller girl was also in hospital under surveillance in the company of a senior British diplomat.

The murdered cyclist, named as Sylvain Mollier, 45, a local man who had three children, was also shot in the head at point-blank range. He is believed to have been silenced after stumbling on the killings. Sources in the investigation told the local French media yesterday that the murders – near the village of Chevaline, 10 miles from Annecy – resembled an “assassination rather than a robbery which went wrong”.

Was Alpine family killer a professional hitman? Manhunt for assassin who shot Iraqi-born Surrey businessman and family members

(Daily Mail) – The gunman who shot dead four people in an apparent ambush on a British family in the Alps could have been a professional killer, police have said. Investigators believe they are searching for a hired hitman after revealing that three of the victims all received clinical ‘bullet shots to the centre of the forehead’.

The father, named as Saad Al Hilli, a Baghdad-born business secretary who now lives with his family in upmarket Claygate in Surrey, and two women – believed to be his wife and mother – were found dead in a bullet-ridden car near Lake Annecy yesterday.

His four-year-old daughter, name locally as Zeena, was found alive after hiding for eight hours under her dead mother’s skirt.

UK police join inquiry into Alps shooting deaths

    Location of assassination in an Alpine forest near Chevaline, close by the Annecy Lake, in Haute-Savoie. Chevaline meaning "of or relating to horses"
    was the code-name for a project to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the British Polaris nuclear weapons system. Devised as an answer
    to the improved Soviet defenses around Moscow, the system was intended to increase the probability that at least one warhead would penetrate the city's
    anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses.