Unsolved Mysteries: The Massacre at Lake Annecy

A Personal Grudge? A Gang of Rogue Assassins? A Lone-Wolf? Who Killed the Al-Hilli Family in the French Alps?

There are few kinds of murder more shocking than when entire families are slain, the tragedy only growing when nobody is ever caught, and no motive ever presents itself. In 2012, one such crime shocked Britain and France when the al-Hilli family was brutally gunned down in their own car, a passing cyclist seemingly being collateral damage as a witness. The killer was merciless, slaughtering four adults and attempting to kill a child. Despite many theories and leads, some involving serial killers and even spies, just why the massacre took place remains a mystery.

The al-Hilli family were originally from Iraq and comprised Saad al-Hilli, 50; his wife Iqbal, 47, and their two daughters, Zeena, aged four, and Zainab, aged seven. Saad had fled to Britain in the 1970s when his father made an enemy of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, his mechanical engineering business being seized. Saad qualified as an engineer in the UK and started an aeronautics design business, Shtech Ltd, which worked with firms as prestigious as Airbus. Iqbal al-Hilli, meanwhile, was a dentist.