By SudOuest.fr with AFP
Investigators continue to question the suspect, a man heard as a witness and exonerated in 2015
The custody of the man questioned since Wednesday morning in the investigation into the quadruple murder of 2012 in Chevaline, Haute-Savoie, has been extended, announced the Annecy prosecutor overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. “#Chevaline The investigating judge decided to extend the current custody since this morning (Wednesday) 8:05,” tweeted the prosecutor of Annecy Line Bonnet late at night.
The latter had indicated Wednesday morning that the police custody was aimed “at carrying out checks on the timetable” and “searches” of this person, whose identity has not been revealed. Faced with a few journalists who were waiting for him in front of the Chambéry gendarmerie on Wednesday evening, his lawyer Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi simply indicated that it is a witness exonerated in 2015. According to the council, his guard on sight is “not justified” because the latter has “always been keen to participate in the manifestation of the truth”.
Judicial enigma
Several newspapers, including Le Dauphiné Libéré, indicate that the suspect questioned is a biker who had been exonerated in 2015. The prosecutor did not confirm this information, calling for caution in this case. She confirmed, however, that the man detained since Wednesday morning was among four witnesses “put in the situation” and timed on the basis of their statements at the scene of the tragedy a little over three months ago.
On September 5, 2012, a 50-year-old Briton of Iraqi origin, Saad al-Hilli, his 47-year-old wife and his 74-year-old mother-in-law were found dead, with several bullets to the head, in their car on a country road near Chevaline, not far from Lake Annecy. One of the daughters of the al-Hilli couple was seriously injured while the second, curled up under her mother’s legs, miraculously escaped the killing unscathed. A cyclist from the region, Sylvain Mollier, 45, a probable collateral victim, was also shot dead.