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A retired French detective believes the unsolved murder of a British family could be related to another killing 30 years ago.

Three members of the British-Iraqi al-Hilli family were gunned down in the village of Chevaline, near Annecy, in the French Alps in September 2012.

Retired detective Pascal Huche believes the slaying is linked to the 1986 murder of two teachers, Lorraine Glasby, 28, and Paul Bellion, 29, from Norfolk in 1986.

Mr Huche believes there are similarities between the two murder and has given the al-Hilli murder squad the name of a suspect in the Brittany case.

The suspect was never convicted but who did later go to prison for a triple attempted murder in Belgium.

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He first passed on the tip in 2014.

“The gendarmes never got back to me and I believe that they did not seek to interrogate the suspect,” he told The Telegraph.

The bodies of Surrey-based Mr al-Hilli, 50, his dentist wife Iqbal, 47, mother-in-law Suhaila 74, and a French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45, were all discovered on a remote mountain forest road.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Earlier this week it was revealed hunt for the killers took a new twist - after the discovery of mystery DNA on their car.

Detectives now hope the mystery traces will lead to a break through in the search for the murderers.

Two DNA traces have been found on the front bumper and under the driver’s floor mat of the family’s British registered BMW estate car.

Neither match any of the victims and or anybody else on the European criminal data base.

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Among the main theories into the murders that have been probed in the past three years is a possible connection to the former regime of Saddam Hussein, after claims that the deposed Iraqi tyrant deposited £840,000 into a bank account in the name of Saad al-Hilli’s father.

They believe murdered Saad could have been feuding over the money with other members of his family before the multiple killings.

Saad’s brother Zaid al-Hilli was arrested by British police in June 2013 and questioned in connection with conspiracy to murder, but was later released without charge and denies any connection to the crime.