Saad al-Hilli

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

National Gendarmerie France Surrey Police (UK)

Offense Location:

Chevaline, France

Summary:

Saad al-Hilli, 50, and his wife Iqbal, 47, along with her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, were brutally murdered in the Swiss Alps in September 2012 near Lake Annecy in France, along with cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45. The only other witnesses to the event were Saad's young daughters. The case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

The attack took place in a lay-by on the mountain-side road at about 15:45 CEST on 5 September 2012. Twenty-five shots were fired in total. Saad al-Hilli asked his seven-year-old daughter, Zainab, if she wanted to go shopping or walking. She chose to go for a stroll. The Hillis left their caravan by the lakeside, piled into their wine-coloured BMW and made for a popular forest track near the pretty village of Chevaline. Within half an hour the three adults were dead, each shot twice in the head. The bodies were discovered by Brett Martin, a British ex-RAF pilot, who is a resident in France, while he was out riding his bicycle. Al-Hilli's eldest daughter, seven-year-old Zainab, was the first victim he saw when he arrived on the scene. She was stumbling into the road and collapsed in front of the British family's BMW car. One daughter, aged 4, was hidden under the legs of her dead mother in the rear footwell for eight hours even while the Gendarmerie were on the scene; she was only discovered by specialist forensic investigators. The elder daughter, aged 7, was shot in the shoulder and also suffered a head wound; she returned to the United Kingdom on 14 September 2012.

Additional Details:

The initial investigation focused on the theory that the al-Hilli family may have been targeted because of a family feud over an inheritance, a line of inquiry based on recorded phone conversations. The two brothers were involved in a bitter dispute over property in the UK, Iraq and possibly elsewhere, part of a multi-million inheritance left by their father when he died in 2011. In June 2013, 10 months after the attacks, investigators arrested and questioned Saad's elder brother Zaid. He was later released without charge. In January 2014, it was announced that there was insufficient evidence to bring a charge against Zaid al-Hilli and his bail was lifted. Maillaud has also suggested that Saad al-Hilli's career as an engineer working with an international British firm specialising in satellites could have provided a motive for the murders. Police have stated that he could have been targeted over a contract he was working on for EADS. Connections to al-Hilli's previous work at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory are also being investigated. A leaked report revealed that Saad al-Hilli may have had access to bank accounts belonging to Saddam Hussein. In September 2017, after five years of investigation, French police said they had "no working theory" to explain the murders and no suspects. The wife of British Iraqi-born engineer Saad al-Hilli had a "secret" American husband who died of a heart attack on the same day as the deadly attack. The former husband, known only as James T, died on September 5 2012 in Natchez, Mississippi. The official cause of death was a heart attack. Also on the list of suspects was an Iraqi prisoner known only as "Mr S", who claimed that he had been offered "a large sum of money" to kill Iraqis that were living in the UK; Patrice Menegaldo, a former French foreign legion officer who knew Mr Mollier's partner; and serial killer Nordahl Lelandais, who was believed to be operating in the area around the same time.

Case Last Updated:

May 11, 2026