Fyra ihjälskjutna i brittisk bil vid fransk sjö (2012-09-05)

The British engineer murdered in the French Alps has been linked to a secret trust thought to contain up to £15 million in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime.
It was set up in the tax haven of Liechtenstein and was one of hundreds the Iraqi tyrant and his cronies used worldwide to hide money skimmed from the UN oil-for-food programme, according to intelligence sources.
Emails and mobile phone calls intercepted by Swiss intelligence agency FIS and passed to their German counterparts suggest that Saad Al-Hilli may have been about to access the money, or part of it, shortly before he was killed.
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Sources told The Mail on Sunday that the emails suggested Iraqi-born Mr Al-Hilli – who has also been linked to a Swiss account containing £840,000 – was about to receive further instructions from Baghdad. However, either they did not materialise or were not intercepted.
While sketchy, the claims raise questions about whether the killers knew or suspected Mr Al-Hilli had access to large deposits of cash.
There have been reports that his late father, Kadhim, was once close to Saddam's Ba'ath Party but fell foul of the tyrant in the Seventies, and fled Iraq for Britain. Alternatively, it has been suggested this was a smokescreen and that Kadhim's true role was to manage secret accounts for the regime.
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German investigators have told French intelligence services about the Liechtenstein trust.
Last week it was claimed that Mr Al-Hilli had access to a Geneva account in the name of his father.
Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud confirmed the Al-Hillis' financial affairs and Iraq connections were at the top of investigators' agenda.
But he said he knew ‘absolutely nothing' about any links with Liechtenstein, and denied German or Swiss intelligence had provided important information.

Alps murders: Family of French cyclist Sylvain Mollier speak out for first time
Two months after the al-Hilli family was gunned down above the village of Chevaline, relatives of the French cyclist killed alongside them have spoken out for the first time. Here they tell Harriet Alexander that there was no way Sylvain Mollier was the assassin's intended target.

“Impossible,” said one cousin, who refused to give his name. “Sylvain didn’t even have a degree. He was a welder, not a nuclear scientist. He wasn’t a mystery man; he’d not ever really travelled far from home.”
Alain Mollier-Camus, another cousin, who works in a nearby ski resort, added: “He was a sportsman and a family man. There's nothing hidden there.”
Certainly, the Cezus factory, where many of Ugine’s residents work, does not look like a high-security nuclear facility. There are no visible CCTV cameras, and only a low wall surrounding the compound, where staff members come and go with only a cursory flash of their ID cards.
“If Sylvain was at all involved in something suspicious, I’d keel over with shock,” said one neighbour, who knew the family well. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Police are unconvinced by suggestions the real target may have been Mollier, a local father of three said to have worked for the French nuclear giant Areva. Mollier, they say, worked as a welder in a workshop at a subsidiary of Areva. "He doesn't appear to have been exposed to nuclear secrets," said a source.