Patrice Menegaldo, who killed himself last year, fits profile of hitman behind murder of British family and French cyclist in 2012, prosecutor says

A former soldier in the French Foreign Legion has been identified as the chief suspect in the 2012 murders of a British family in the Alps, according to a new book about the unsolved crime.

Patrice Menegaldo, who killed himself last June, was interviewed as a witness after the shootings of Saad al-Hilli, his wife Iqbal, mother-in-law Suhaila and French cyclist Sylvain Mollier.

Investigators are looking into Menegaldo’s movements because he exactly fits the profile of the professional hitman believed to be behind the killings.

In an interview for the Daily Mirror book The Perfect Crime, state prosecutor Eric Maillaud said Menelgado was “at the top of the chain” for detectives, who have been hunting for the assassin on both sides of the channel.

Iraqi-born satellite engineer Hilli and the other victims were shot at point-blank range on a forest road in Chevaline in September 2012. The family’s bodies were discovered in their BMW car, while the body of local cyclist Mollier, a father of three, was found nearby.

Hilli’s two young daughters survived the attack – the eldest, Zainab, seven, was pistol-whipped, which police believe was a result of the killer running out of ammunition. Her sister Zeena, four, hid under her mother’s skirt.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Saad al-Hilli, the British-Iraqi man killed in September 2012 alongside his wife and mother-in-law in a mysterious shooting in the French Alps Photograph: Family Album/AFP/Getty Images

Maillaud said Menegaldo was acquainted with Mollier’s partner, Claire Schutz. The suspect and the victim were from the nearby town of Ugine. “The hypothesis at the top of the chain for investigators is a local killing. We have a real suspect. I am referring to the Legionnaire from Ugine,” he said. “Here is a middle-aged man who kills himself and to explain this leaves a letter saying he couldn’t handle being considered a suspect.”

Maillaud said this was peculiar as Menegaldo had been interviewed only as a witness because he knew the Schutz family. “We are talking about a hardened ex-soldier, someone using a gun, suddenly saying he couldn’t deal with being thought of as a suspect. The investigators are still digging into this man. He had psychological problems.

“Could it, by chance, have been him? Did he regret his actions afterwards and take his own life? Otherwise it is an inexplicable suicide. He had the technical capacity to do what was done that day.”

The book also contains a claim from Hilli’s brother that there had been a “cover-up” over the deaths and that Mollier was the killer’s real target.

Zaid al-Hilli told the Mirror: “Saad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think they twisted it around. It’s not fair on the families and the victims this went on for such a long time with not a shred of evidence.

“There is a cover-up. I think they know who is behind it, who is the gunman and everything. It’s absolute nonsense what they came out with. I think they know exactly who was the target, and it was Sylvain Mollier.”

Zaid al-Hilli, from Chessington, Surrey, admitted he fought with his brother in October 2011 after months of arguments over a £1m property, which the family owned in Claygate, but denied any suggestions he was involved in the killings. He was arrested on suspicion of the murders in June 2013 but later told that he would face no further action after police found there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

In a further twist, the Mirror reported that Iqbal al-Hilli kept in touch with her secret American ex-husband Jimmy Thompson. Until now it was thought Iqbal had cut all ties with Thompson, who died of a heart attack on the same day as the murders.