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

Mission and tasks
Eurojust stimulates and improves the coordination of investigations and prosecutions between the competent authorities in the Member States and improves the cooperation between the competent authorities of the Member States, in particular by facilitating the execution of international mutual legal assistance and the implementation of extradition requests. Eurojust supports in any way possible the competent authorities of the Member States to render their investigations and prosecutions more effective when dealing with cross-border crime.

At the request of a Member State, Eurojust may assist investigations and prosecutions concerning that particular Member State and a non-Member State if a cooperation agreement has been concluded or if an essential interest in providing such assistance is demonstrated.

Eurojust's competence covers the same types of crime and offences for which Europol has competence, such as terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, counterfeiting, money laundering, computer crime, crime against property or public goods including fraud and corruption, criminal offences affecting the European Community's financial interests, environmental crime and participation in a criminal organisation. For other types of offences, Eurojust may assist in investigations and prosecutions at the request of a Member State.

Eurojust may ask the competent authorities of the Member States concerned:

to investigate or prosecute specific acts;
to coordinate with one another;
to accept that one country is better placed to prosecute than another;
to set up a Joint Investigation Team; or
to provide Eurojust with information necessary to carry out its tasks.
Furthermore, Eurojust:

shall ensure that the competent authorities inform each other of investigations and prosecutions of which they have been informed;
shall assist the competent authorities in ensuring the best possible coordination of investigations and prosecutions;
shall give assistance to improve cooperation between the competent national authorities, in particular based on Europol's analyses;
shall cooperate and consult with the European Judicial Network (EJN), and make use of and contribute to the improvement of its documentary database;
may, in accordance with its objectives, try to improve cooperation and coordination between the competent authorities, and forward requests for judicial assistance when they: (i) are made by the competent authority of a Member State, (ii) concern an investigation or prosecution conducted by that authority in a specific case, and (iii) necessitate its intervention with a view to coordinated action;
may assist Europol, particularly with opinions based on analyses carried out by Europol; and
may supply logistical support, e.g. assistance in translation, interpretation and the organisation of coordination meetings.

The gunman who killed three members of a British family in the Alps in September last year first shot a French cyclist, ballistics tests have found.

Le cycliste français dont le corps avait été retrouvé gisant à côté de la voiture de la famille al-Hilli était là par "erreur". "Il s'est mal guidé et s'est trompé de route. Il est arrivé sur place purement par erreur", a déclaré à l'AFP M. Maillaud.

Does French cyclist hold the key to Alps massacre? He was shot seven times BEFORE British family were gunned down

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Officially, police say there is no scientific proof about the chronology of the executions.
That may be true, but we have been told that investigators who have accessed all the available evidence are convinced that Sylvain Mollier was the first to be shot.


Mr Saad al-Hilli's car at the heart of the murder scene in the forrest near Chevaline and Lake Annecy in the French Alps
A source who agreed to meet the Mail in a hotel in Grenoble last week has close links with the local gendarmerie and has detailed knowledge of the ballistics file.
Mr Mollier, he says, was shot seven times in two separate bursts of fire. The first two shots were to his chest, the third to his head. The angle and trajectory of the bullets mean Mr Mollier must have been either standing up or still on his bike when he was gunned down.
But analysis of the four other bullets, all in Mr Mollier’s back and lower body, indicate he was lying on the ground when they were fired. Because Mr Mollier was shot in different positions, police believe it is unlikely that all seven shots came from a single, continuous volley of gunfire; there was a gap, they think, maybe only a few fleeting moments, between the initial and final shots, during which time members of the Al-Hilli family were killed.


In other words, the gunman opened fire on Mr Mollier first, then dispatched Saad Al-Hilli, his wife Ikbal and her mother Suhalia, who had all witnessed the attack, before returning to ‘finish off’ Mr Mollier.
This version of events is not inconsistent with seven-year-old Zainab Al-Hilli’s account of what happened. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, she told detectives she and her father were outside the car when the shooting started.
Her father grabbed her hand and may have been shot in the back as he fled with her to the vehicle. In the confusion, he got in the BMW without her, locked the doors then reversed at high speed and hit Mr Mollier in the chest.
As her father frantically reversed the car, Zainab says, it got stuck on an embankment, leaving those inside it at the mercy of the killer.
If Mr Mollier was shot in two separate bursts of fire as police suspect, he may already have been dead or fatally wounded when the car struck him and then reversed into the embankment.