In brief
Police have found a Luger P06 pistol in Lake Annecy, 14 years after the murders of Saad al‑Hilli, his wife and mother‑in‑law. The firearm, used in the shootings, has now been recovered from two metres of water near the original site. Experts hope that forensic examination of the weapon could confirm its model and trace its origin, potentially identifying the perpetrator. The case, long unsolved, has seen various theories, but the new find may finally bring closure to the families.
By Hugh Schofield, Paris correspondent
Published 5 hours ago
Saad al-Hilli was shot dead with his wife and mother-in-law in September 2012.
Police investigating the 14‑year‑old unsolved murder of a British family in the French Alps have a fresh clue following the discovery of a Luger P06 pistol in Lake Annecy.
The photograph of the Luger, a firearm used by the Swiss army until around 1960, was found in two metres of water near the camping site Le Solitaire du Lac, where the victims had stayed in a caravan.
British tourists initially mistook the weapon for a water pistol, but realised its heavier weight and realised it matched the battered fragments found at the crime scene.
Forensic experts will examine the pistol, now severely damaged by water exposure, to confirm it is indeed a P06 model and to trace its serial data.
No more than 60,000 Luger P06s were produced, though overall Luger production ran to roughly three million units, making the gun a rarity among collectors.
The murders occurred on 5 September 2012 in a forest road near Chevaline, where Saad al‑Hilli, his wife and mother-in-law were found dead in their car, with a passing cyclist also killed in a similar fashion.
Their two daughters survived, one sustaining a head injury from the gun butt, while the other was hidden beneath the mother’s skirts and discovered only hours later by forensic investigators.
The shooting was carried out with a pistol of the Luger brand, indicating the killer might not have been a professional gunman but perhaps a collector or a motivated assassin.
Lake Annecy lies only 50 kilometres from the Swiss border, where many Lugers were familiar to former soldiers; French authorities noted several examples are kept privately on either side of the frontier.
Speculation has ranged from a family financial dispute to a random act of violence, with one theory suggesting the main target was the cyclist; a recent connection was the death of al‑Hilli’s wife’s first husband, an American, hours before the killings.
Key Facts
- Weapon type: Luger P06 pistol
- Discovery location: Lake Annecy, two metres deep
- Victims: Saad al‑Hilli, wife, mother‑in‑law, and a cyclist
- Date of original crime: 5 September 2012
- Current status: Cold case re‑examined with new evidence
