Bomb squad leaves French Alps murder house in Claygate

British army bomb disposal experts on Monday left the house in Surrey in southern England belonging to the family killed in the French Alps after examining a number of suspicious items.

Reuters/Olivia Harris

Police had earlier evacuated neighbouring homes and cordoned off two roads while the bomb squad checked the house of Iraqi-born Saad al-Hilli in Claygate in Surrey, southwest of London.

Police said the experts were called in "due to concerns around items found at the address" and added that an "assessment of items found at the address is currently being carried out as a precaution".

But after nearly three hours, the Royal Logistics Corps bomb disposal van left the scene along with another police vehicle and police reopened the road.

A Surrey Police spokeswoman said they would issue a statement later but had no immediate details on the results of the search.

British media reports said the search focused on a shed at the bottom of the garden.

Meanwhile, the seven-year-old survivor of the massacre in the French Alps remains under sedation Monday, unable to speak to investigators who are trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the attack.

Zainab al-Hilli is recovering from a fractured skull and a bullet wound in the shoulder which she incurred in the September 5 shooting in which her Iraq-born parents, Saad and Ikbal, her 74-year-old grandmother and Frenchman Sylvain Mollier were killed.

"When the doctors give us authorisation we will be able to interview her in hospital butfor the moment they are not allowing it," said Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud.

"She was in an induced coma which she was brought out of on Sunday but she remains under sedation. It is a normal process."

Zainab's potential testimony is seen as very important for detectives probing the quadruple murder.

Her four-year-old sister Zeena survived the attack unscathed after hiding in the back of the family car but she has not been able to provide any significant information about what happened.

Zainab owes her life to the quick reactions of a British RAF veteran who cycled into the car park minutes after the shooting.

He discovered the girl outside the maroon BMW in which her parents and grandmother were shot and placed her in the recovery position before phoning emergency services who arranged for her to be flown by helicopter to the University Hospital in nearby Grenoble.
Maillaud has confirmed that 25 spent cartridges were found at the scene and the large number has been interpreted as a sign that there was probably more than one person shooting.

There has been no official confirmation of unsourced reports in British media that analysis of bullets retrieved from the corpses had led investigators to believe that there were two killers.