London - The brother of one of the French Alps massacre victims has denied hiring a hitman to kill the family over a £1-million-plus inheritance feud.
Accountant Zaid al-Hilli, 54, was arrested at his home in Surrey on Monday morning on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
His brother Saad al-Hilli, 50, was killed in a gun attack in France that left three others dead and Saad’s daughters Zainab, 8, and Zeena, 5, orphaned.
In an exclusive interview with the Mail, Zaid said he loved his brother and did not “know how he could have been killed in this terrible way”.
As police made the first arrest on the case nine months after the killings, it emerged that:
- French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said it was “essential” to question the orphans, particularly because Zainab was the only witness;
- Maillaud said Saad “feared for his life” before the assassination because of the “very violent” feud with his brother;
- Investigators were examining the inheritance left by the men’s late father Kadhim, which included several properties and £800 000 in a Swiss bank;
- The inheritance dispute was described as “so colossal” that investigators expect to take two years to sift through legal papers written in four different languages; and
- French police are anxious to establish why Zaid allegedly called five telephone numbers in Romania weeks before the massacre.
Saad al-Hilli died alongside his wife Ikbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, when the family’s BMW was riddled with bullets near Lake Annecy in September. French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, was also killed as he passed by the scene, while Zainab was injured but has since recovered.
In an interview prior to his arrest, Zaid told the Mail: “I am at a complete loss as to what has happened. There have been reports that there was a row over money with my brother but that is not the case.
“I have told the British police everything I know and all I can do now is wait for them and the police abroad to come up with some answers. To me this is all a total mystery.”
Looking gaunt and tired, Zaid said he had not been “eating or sleeping well”.
“This is my family that has been killed and I am suffering greatly,” he added. “Like everybody I want answers and I hope in time we will find out what happened. There has been a lot of people speculating but I hope in the end the police find who was responsible.”
Zaid was questioned by detectives at a Surrey police station on Monday after being arrested at his flat in Chessington at 7.30am.
The arrest is the first significant development in the inquiry. Around 100 police officers in Britain and France have been tasked with investigating the killings, and they have focused on three lines of inquiry: Saad’s work as an engineer, his links to his native Iraq and the alleged family feud.
Zaid was questioned by French police in March over the alleged inheritance dispute. The men’s father, who was Iraqi, died in Spain two years ago, leaving several properties and hundreds of thousands of pounds in the Geneva account.
Saad had hired lawyers to block the will until the dispute had been resolved. Maillaud, Annecy’s public prosecutor, claimed Zaid had attempted to fabricate his father’s will in his favour.
“It looks like he tried to take the fortune for himself,” Maillaud said. “Formal and written evidence leaves no doubt about the very violent family dispute that pitted the two brothers on the issue of the inheritance of their father.”
Maillaud said the “family dispute is so colossal” that it would take investigators two years to go through the legal papers, in English, Arabic, Spanish and Swedish.
“Based on letters we found and conversations he [Saad] had, he feared for his life,” Maillaud added. “In these letters he expressed his worry for his life due to his desire to recover his father’s fortune and the conflict it caused with his family. That fear was there.”
Saad reportedly kept a Taser stun gun at his £1-million home in Claygate, Surrey and changed the locks before he went on holiday.
The extent of the alleged feud was laid bare in a letter Saad wrote to a childhood friend a year before his murder. He said he and his brother were no longer speaking, adding: “He tried a lot of underhand things even when my father was alive. He tried to take control of father’s assets.” - Daily Mail