France investigates Alps murder photo leaks

GRENOBLE - French prosecutors said Thursday they had opened two preliminary inquiries into leaks after a French television station aired horrific images of the unsolved 2012 murders of an Iraqi-British family.

Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old, was gunned down along with his 47-year-old wife Iqbal and her 74-year-old mother in a woodland car park in the hills above Lake Annecy in the French Alps.

A French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, was killed after apparently stumbling upon the scene.

Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor of Annecy, said the probe would look into how BFMTV acquired the photographs of the crime scene and who leaked them.

The probes were opened on Wednesday. The images were then used by other media groups.

They followed a complaint by Mollier's family after the images were aired by BFMTV.

One of the shots was taken from the air by police circling over the crime scene on helicopter. It showed the BMW estate car in which the Al-Hillis were shot dead and the body of Mollier sprawled on the ground beside it.

Another photograph showed the car photographed from close.

The two Al-Hilli daughters, aged seven and four at the time, survived the attack.

French and British police have so far failed to make any tangible progress in the case despite a massive effort involving officers on both sides of the Channel.

Authorities last month arrested a former policeman in connection with the case but he was not charged with the murders and is instead facing arms trafficking charges.