Murder in the Alps

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Thanks for such an interesting information.

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There were also those phone calls to Romania that the police blamed Zaid for but it turned out they were made by his brother!

Yes indeed, there are many unanswered questions. However after watching the documentary I remain convinced that the poor quality of the French investigation has resulted in many of these questions remaining unanswered. I suspect they never will be answered now.

I have just caught up with all 3 episodes and it's absolutely intriguing and like someone said above, it leaves a number of loose ends.

Why did Ikbal, who was living as Kelly in the US, suddenly say she had to leave. I did wonder if she was a "sleeper spy". Did she marry Saad bigamously in this country? It seems the FBI were watching her. Why?

What about all that money in the Swiss bank account in the father's name?

Why was Saad beaten up when he and Ikbal went to Baghdad for a visit? And why would they go there when his family had to leave in a hurry years ago because of his father's business?

Why would Saad take all those financial documents, a copy of the will and various hard drives etc on holiday in the caravan? Who does that? And why did he change the locks on his house after the fight with his brother Zaid, and keep a taser gun in the house? Surely he had no right to exclude his brother as they were both left the property by the father?

Zaid said there had been no disagreement whatsoever, but that turned out to be a lie.

So many unanswered questions.

It's an interesting documentary grandetanteJE65 if you can find it to watch.
I am equally critical of "our police" when they appear to have made a misjudged decision or messed up. I think that the Met got it badly wrong in the case of the shooting of Jean Charles Meneses for example.

Worth watching if you can grandetanteJE65

It was the missing passports that did it for me. Much was made about the fact their passports were missing.

They were found 2 years after the murders in the jacket pocket of one of the victims. The police had bagged up items and hadn't looked in the pockets.

Also, much was made about the family being the intended target but now there are questions as to whether the French cyclist had been the target and maybe the family has witnessed it which led to the killings

I remember the case, but have not seen the documentary.

The French police may have made mistakes, or may not, I could not tell.

I have noticed over the years that when a crime occurs involving any nation's citizens who are not in their own country when murdered, raped, etc. etc. people always automatically criticise the police investigation,

Our police would never have done that is plastered all over the reporting of the case, and no one ever stops to think that "our police" may very well have done the same, and been criticised for doing it, when a crime occured on their own turf.

This particular crime did sound more like a spy novel than most spy novels do, and although we all know by now that psycopaths exist and may kill people at random, it is not usually the most reasonable explanation.

Unless new evidence turns up, or someone confesses to the crime on their death-bed, and does so convincingly, I don't believe this crime or many others like it, will ever be solved.

I may have missed an announcement, but although the German police said they had found Madeleine McCann's murderer, I think I am right in saying that no-one has yet found the child's body, or convincingly explained why a pedarast known for liking little boys should have abducted a little girl. Neither has anyone yet told us who actually killed de Lorca and where his body is, although practically each and every group that took part in the Spanish Civil War has been accused of his murder.

But a psychopath could have gone round the campsite shooting, or round a restaurant. Why the forest? That is what puzzles me.

there is a third theory imo.

What if they were all killed by a pyschopath on a killing spree; all complete strangers to him. This happens. You only have to look at mass murders around the world to see this.
A guy with a gun is wandering around the forest looking for trouble. He has an argument with the cyclist that boils over; shoots him then the poor family who were onlookers.

I felt the wife was targeted for spying or suspected spying.

There was so much more I wanted to know. Like why the wife was known by an American name when she lived there but as Iqbal in the UK? And where her mother was when she was in the US. It left so many things unanswered.

Talking of police forces who get things wrong/right, I've taped the Grace Malone murder in Auckland. Did anyone watch it? Sorry to derail.

I think it more likely that the cyclist came by at the wrong time - a cyclist wouldn't be heard coming; the car had been parked there so it wasn't them passing by at the wrong time.

I am tempted to agree with maddyone because the father put his foot on the accelerator to drive away quickly on seeing the cyclist had been shot first. You wouldn't want to hang around.
The French police bungled it from the start. I have never understood their system where you have gendarmes, and police municipale and a host of judges and procurators all pushing papers around but not working in joined up fashion.

This is Episode 2, I hope!

www.channel4.com/programmes/murder-in-the-alps/on-demand/72251-002

Can someone please send a link to Episode 3

Sparklefizz

I can't find episode 2 on More 4. Just episodes 1 and 3.
Anyone else?

Yes! Same here. Very frustrating. I’m going to try it another day and hope it is there.

I agree, maddyone. I'm convinced it wasn't the brother. No evidence at all.

I wonder if we'll ever know.

If the cyclist was the target, then the family were unfortunately witnesses, and would have had to be eliminated in order to prevent them from being witnesses who were able to testify against the killer. As the programme made clear, there is absolutely no evidence that the brother had anything to do with it at all. The French messed up the investigation from the first moment and refused to investigate the possibility of the cyclist being the intended target. This is poor policing because no possible lead should ever be ignored. The wealthy family of the cyclist’s girlfriend were said to want to disapprove of him and this was not properly investigated. The simple fact that the British family’s passports were missing for several years, leading to all kinds of far fetched speculation and investigation, such as the family were spies, and then the passports being discovered, not missing at all, but in Saad’s pocket where no one bothered to look, is testimony to the appallingly poor quality of the investigators in France, and therefore must lead to questions being asked as to why the possibility, even probability, of the cyclist being the target was not even considered by the French during their poor quality investigations.