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 examining magistrate has decided to extend the custody currently in progress 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”.
One of the greatest legal puzzles
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.
This case is one of the great legal enigmas that have held France in suspense for the past fifty years. It has already given rise to thousands of hours of investigation and hearings, tons of documents peeled and four arrests, without having been elucidated to date.