The motive behind the brutally cold-blooded massacre of three members of a British family on holiday, and of a cyclist who was out for a stroll, has been murky since the killings last Wednesday. But a little girl in a French hospital could soon change all that.
In a hospital guarded by armed police in the French alpine town of Grenoble, the relatives of a seven-year-old girl are waiting for the right moment to break the terrible news that her parents are dead.
With her relatives at her bedside, Zainab Al Hilli is perhaps the only witness to the brutal killings of her mother, father and grandmother in a wooded beauty spot near the picturesque Lake Annecy.
Her four-year-old sister Zeena also survived the massacre, but only by hiding, mute with terror for eight hours, under the skirts of her dead mother in the family car.
That two little girls have lost their parents under the most brutal of circumstances remains almost the only certain fact nearly six days after a British cyclist stumbled across the scene of slaughter.
The mystery of who killed Saeed Al Hilli, his wife Iqbal and his elderly mother-in-law deepened yesterday as police searching the family home in Surrey, England evacuated neighbours and called in the bomb squad, revealing that a "potentially explosive substance" had been found.
Officers from the Royal Logistics Corps bomb disposal squad spent two hours at the property, without revealing what had been found.
Since the weekend, the investigation into the murders has taken on an international dimension, as British police collaborate with French detectives, and with reports that the Swiss authorities are also now involved.
In the absence of a named suspect - or any suspects - speculation about the motive for the killings has ranged from a family feud to a contact killing ordered to silence Mr Al Hilli over his work in the satellite industry.
There seems little doubt, though, that Al Hilli, 50, was the main target, and that the other killings, including that of a passing French recreational cyclist whose wife had recently given birth, were collateral damage.
Born in Iraq, Al Hilli moved to Britain in the 1970s after his father fell out with the ruling Baath party. The teenager was educated in London and trained as a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry. In 2002 he took British citizenship.
He is understood to have met his dentist wife on a holiday in Dubai 10 years ago, with the couple raising their daughters in Claygate, an archetypal suburb of mock-Tudor houses to the south of London.
At the time of his death, Al Hilli was working for Surrey Satellites Technology Limited, a private space engineering company whose work is mostly in civilian communications and environmental monitoring.
In the immediate aftermath of the killings, suspicion fell on the dead man's elder brother Zaid amid allegations of a family feud over an inheritance.
The two men were said to have fought over their father's estate after his death in Spain last year. Al Hilli had written to a friend, saying he had cut himself off from Zaid, 53, for "underhand things" involving their late father's assets.
In the letter to the friend, he complained: "Zaid and I do not communicate any more as he is another control freak and tried a lot of underhand things, even when my father was alive."
For his part, Zaid Al Hilli has denied any problems with his brother, with a cousin insisting that Zaid was in "very deep shock" and "clearly devastated" by the killings.
A second theory involved alleged links between Saad Al Hilli and the defence industry, with newspaper reports in Britain suggesting he had been working on a "secret project" linked to a company making "eye in the sky" satellites. It was unclear, however, why this would make him a target for murder.
Those who knew the family well find it hard to believe Al Hilli could have been involved in anything that might result in assassination.
Friends and neighbours described a loving husband, devoted to his daughters. He was "the perfect father and a wonderful engineer", one former colleague told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
A neighbour, George Aicolina, described the "stunning little girls with lovely eyes", adding "they were a very happy and caring family."
At the same time, there were suggestions of a darker side to the family's apparently idyllic life in suburbia. Another neighbour, Philip Murphy, told the Daily Mail that he believed Al Hilli had been under surveillance by intelligence officers from the British Special Branch and that police had asked if they could use his driveway to watch the house.
"They would sit there all day in their parked car just looking at the house," Mr Murphy claimed, adding that the surveillance began at around the time of the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces in 2003.
Jack Saltman, another neighbour, said he had been told something by Al Hilli over the garden fence that he would be passing on the investigating police. "It was something Saad said to me before he went but at this stage I do not feel I can disclose that, but I will tell the police exactly what he told me before he left," Mr Saltman said.
If the murders were a professional hit, they were carried out with meticulous and cold-blooded brutality. Yet at the same time, it is not clear why Zainab was not killed along with her family or whether the French cyclist was anything more than someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Al Hilli and his family, including his mother-in-law, who holds Swedish nationality, had set out from England on camping holiday in the Haute-Savoie, driving through France in their maroon BMW estate car, caravan in tow, and arriving at a campsite near Saint Jorioz, a village on the western shore of the lake.
Last Thursday, the family drove down a narrow track in forested area popular with holidaymakers near the village of Chavaline south of the lake. The alarm was raised by a former British Royal Air Force servicemen, now living in the area, who found Zaineb staggering towards him, beaten about the head and shot in the shoulder.
Inside the vehicle were the bodies of her parents and 74-year-old grandmother, Suhailia Al Allaf. Each had been clinically shot twice through head, probably with a semi-automatic pistol. It was only after questioning holidaymakers at the campsite that police realised there were two children. Hidden for eight hours, undetected even by thermal imagining, Zeena was found still alive inside the BMW.
Police say she cannot provide any information about the attack. Yesterday sources close to French police were quoted as saying that the weapon was "an average calibre considered old by the experts and not consistent with modern firearms" and reporting that only one gunman was involved. Nor have they ruled out the possibility that the family accidentally stumbled across some form of criminal activity and was killed to silence them.
Such were the injuries inflicted on Zainab that doctors placed her in an induced coma from which she has only now emerged. The task now is to break the news of her parent's death while attempting to discover if the little girl who saw too much also knows enough to put police on the trail of the killer.
jlangton@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Where to buy art books in the UAE
There are a number of speciality art bookshops in the UAE.
In Dubai, The Lighthouse at Dubai Design District has a wonderfully curated selection of art and design books. Alserkal Avenue runs a pop-up shop at their A4 space, and host the art-book fair Fully Booked during Art Week in March. The Third Line, also in Alserkal Avenue, has a strong book-publishing arm and sells copies at its gallery. Kinokuniya, at Dubai Mall, has some good offerings within its broad selection, and you never know what you will find at the House of Prose in Jumeirah. Finally, all of Gulf Photo Plus’s photo books are available for sale at their show.
In Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi has a beautiful selection of catalogues and art books, and Magrudy’s – across the Emirates, but particularly at their NYU Abu Dhabi site – has a great selection in art, fiction and cultural theory.
In Sharjah, the Sharjah Art Museum sells catalogues and art books at its museum shop, and the Sharjah Art Foundation has a bookshop that offers reads on art, theory and cultural history.
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The bio
His favourite book - 1984 by George Orwell
His favourite quote - 'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance' by Derek Bok, Former President of Harvard
Favourite place to travel to - Peloponnese, Southern Greece
Favourite movie - The Last Emperor
Favourite personality from history - Alexander the Great
Role Model - My father, Yiannis Davos
'Gehraiyaan'
Director:Shakun Batra
Stars:Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Dhairya Karwa
Rating: 4/5
Results
5pm: UAE Martyrs Cup (TB) Conditions Dh90,000 2,200m
Winner: Mudaarab, Jim Crowley (jockey), Erwan Charpy (trainer).
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup (PA) Handicap Dh70,000 1,400m
Winner: Jawal Al Reef, Richard Mullen, Hassan Al Hammadi.
6pm: UAE Matyrs Trophy (PA) Maiden Dh80,000 1,600m
Winner: Salima Al Reef, Jesus Rosales, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
6.30pm: Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak (IFAHR) Apprentice Championship (PA) Prestige Dh100,000 1,600m
Winner: Bainoona, Ricardo Iacopini, Eric Lemartinel.
7pm: Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak (IFAHR) Ladies World Championship (PA) Prestige Dh125,000 1,600m
Winner: Assyad, Victoria Larsen, Eric Lemartinel.
8pm: Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Jewel Crown (PA) Group 1 Dh5,000,000 1,600m
Winner: Mashhur Al Khalediah, Jean-Bernard Eyquem, Phillip Collington.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
World record transfers
1. Kylian Mbappe - to Real Madrid in 2017/18 - €180 million (Dh770.4m - if a deal goes through)
2. Paul Pogba - to Manchester United in 2016/17 - €105m
3. Gareth Bale - to Real Madrid in 2013/14 - €101m
4. Cristiano Ronaldo - to Real Madrid in 2009/10 - €94m
5. Gonzalo Higuain - to Juventus in 2016/17 - €90m
6. Neymar - to Barcelona in 2013/14 - €88.2m
7. Romelu Lukaku - to Manchester United in 2017/18 - €84.7m
8. Luis Suarez - to Barcelona in 2014/15 - €81.72m
9. Angel di Maria - to Manchester United in 2014/15 - €75m
10. James Rodriguez - to Real Madrid in 2014/15 - €75m
if you go
Getting there
Etihad (Etihad.com), Emirates (emirates.com) and Air France (www.airfrance.com) fly to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, from Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively. Return flights cost from around Dh3,785. It takes about 40 minutes to get from Paris to Compiègne by train, with return tickets costing €19. The Glade of the Armistice is 6.6km east of the railway station.
Staying there
On a handsome, tree-lined street near the Chateau’s park, La Parenthèse du Rond Royal (laparenthesedurondroyal.com) offers spacious b&b accommodation with thoughtful design touches. Lots of natural woods, old fashioned travelling trunks as decoration and multi-nozzle showers are part of the look, while there are free bikes for those who want to cycle to the glade. Prices start at €120 a night.
More information: musee-armistice-14-18.fr ; compiegne-tourisme.fr; uk.france.fr
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
Profile of MoneyFellows
Founder: Ahmed Wadi
Launched: 2016
Employees: 76
Financing stage: Series A ($4 million)
Investors: Partech, Sawari Ventures, 500 Startups, Dubai Angel Investors, Phoenician Fund
