His composite portrait was released on November 4, 2013, more than a year after the Chevaline killings. A man, placed in police custody on Wednesday, was released without any charge being brought against him, Thursday, January 13, in this enigmatic case. His lawyer, Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi, had confirmed with franceinfo that his client was indeed the biker seen at the time near the scene of the quadruple murder. He was found in 2015, two years after a call for witnesses. Questioned by the gendarmes, he was finally cleared. Why was he on the justice radar again? What do we know of him? Response elements.
A biker crossed by forest rangers
We have to go back to 2012, after the discovery of a decimated family on a country road near Chevaline, not far from Lake Annecy. On Wednesday September 5, a 50-year-old Briton of Iraqi origin, Saad Al-Hilli, his 47-year-old wife and his 74-year-old mother-in-law were found dead in their car. They were shot several times in the head. One of the couple’s little girls was seriously injured while the second, curled up under her mother’s legs, miraculously emerged physically unscathed. A cyclist from the region, Sylvain Mollier, 45, a probable collateral victim, was also shot dead.
That day, at the approximate time of the quadruple murder (between 3.15 p.m. and 3.40 p.m.), a man wearing a goatee and wearing a black helmet was riding a motorbike on the Combe d’Ire road, partly closed to circulation. He meets two forest guards from the National Forestry Office (ONF) who ask him to respect the ban and turn back. The biker obeys and descends the path, passing in front of the parking lot where part of the Al-Hilli family and the cyclist lost their lives.
An entrepreneur from Lyon, a paraglider enthusiast
After the testimony of the two ONF agents, the gendarmes of the research section of Chambéry tried to find the motorcyclist. In the impasse, they launched a year later a call for witnesses and the composite portrait of a man wearing a goatee and a helmet of a very particular type, then manufactured in 8,000 copies. The individual becomes a suspect in the investigation.
He was found in February 2015 and interviewed as a witness by the investigators. The gendarmes managed to identify him thanks to his mobile phone, which “limited” in the area of the crime, and by the exploitation of video images collected shortly after the tragedy.
The biker then explains that he came to Chevaline, on September 5, 2012, to practice his passion: paragliding. The area is indeed known for its free flight spots, between the Forclaz pass, the Charbon mountain and the town of Doussard. He claims not to have made the connection between his presence in the area, the killing and his composite portrait broadcast throughout France.
At the time, he was dismissed. As confided an actor of the file to franceinfo, “his personal and professional profile excludes him from the list of 95% suspects”. His identity has never been revealed.
From “schedule checks” to be carried out
Announcing the placement in police custody of this man in his fifties by the research section of Chambéry, Wednesday morning, the prosecutor of Annecy, Line Bonnet, explained that it was a question of “carry out schedule checks” and to “searches” at his home in the suburbs of Lyon.
Without revealing the identity of the person concerned, the magistrate confirmed that the man was among four witnesses “restored” at the scene of the tragedy just over three months ago and timed, based on their statements. In September 2021, the perimeter of the area of the killing was cordoned off for two days to carry out this re-enactment of the four witnesses, including the motorcyclist of the composite portrait.
According to information from franceinfo, the Diane cell (division of unsolved cases) of the judicial center of the gendarmerie also made the algorithm of its Anacrim software work and chronological inconsistencies appeared.
His lawyer denounced “a miscarriage of justice”
“This is a miscarriage of justice, my client is going through an ordeal”, pleaded on franceinfo his lawyer, Jean-Christophe Basson-Larbi. Faced with a few journalists who were waiting for him in front of the Chambéry gendarmerie on Wednesday evening, he felt that this police custody was not “not justified” because his client had “always had at heart to participate in the manifestation of the truth”.
“He has the feeling of swimming in the middle of Kafka and he has the feeling of having delivered absolutely everything he knew”, he added.
That man “has, at no time, the profile of someone who could have committed in cold blood, with premeditation, such an assassination”, underlined his council, specifying in front of the press that “the position of this gentleman [était] always the same: ‘I was walking (…) but I did not cross paths with this poor family’.”
A version deemed credible again because, as the prosecutor points out in a press release, “the explanations given and the checks carried out made it possible to rule out his possible participation in the facts”. False twists like this have been numerous in this case.