An arrest has been made in the unsolved murders of three British family members and a French cyclist who were gunned down in the Alps in 2012.
The prosecutor in Annecy, France, said a person had been taken into custody on Wednesday morning in relation to the investigation.
Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife, Ikbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were shot dead on a road near Annecy in eastern France on September 5, 2012.
Their two young daughters survived the horror, but 45-year-old cyclist Sylvain Mollier was also killed.
The bodies of Iraqi-born engineer Mr al-Hilli and his dentist wife, who lived in Claygate, Surrey, were discovered along with that of Mrs al-Hilli’s mother in their BMW on a remote forest route.
In a bizarre twist, Mrs al-Hilli’s previous husband, an American dentist named only as James T, died from a heart attack on the same day as the couple, but police said there was no link to the murders.
No individual responsible for the attack has ever been caught, despite a near decade-long investigation which has spanned across the world.
Suspects previously arrested in connection with the case include an Iraqi prisoner known as Mr S who was claimed to have said he had been offered “a large sum of money” to kill Iraqis living in the UK.
Mr al-Hilli’s brother, Zaid, was also arrested on suspicion of murder in 2013 but was later told he would face no further action after police found there was insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime.
