Relatives of the ‘secret ex-husband’ of the British woman who was shot dead in the Alps along with her husband fear he may have been poisoned, his family told MailOnline today.

The family of James Thompson think that there could have been a conspiracy which led to his death at around the same time on the on the same day as Iqbal Al-Hilli, who was killed when her family's car was strafed with gunfire while on a camping trip in France on September 5 2012.

The case has sparked an international investigation but no killer has been identified during the last two years.

The claim came just hours after French police revealed the existence of Mrs Al-Hilli’s American husband for the first time in a bombshell announcement.

The official cause of death for Mr Thompson, from Natchez, Mississippi, was a heart attack at the age of 60 - but today French police sensationally claimed that his death is more than a freak coincidence.

And his family today told MailOnline that they believe foul play may well have been involved after the FBI became involved in the case last year.



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Husbands: James Thompson, left, was married to murder victim Iqbal Al-Hilli, French investigators have revealed. He died on September 5, 2012 - the same day as Saad Al-Hilli, right, was gunned down with his wife

Short-lived: Thompson was married for only a year or so to Iqbal al-Hilli around 1999 - and is believed to have met through his relatives

So far neither the FBI nor the French police have revealed any proof that Mr Thompson was involved in the killings, but his daughter Joy Martinolich said that after Mrs Al-Hilli’s death her aunt and her brother believed that sinister forces could have been at play.



Miss Martinolich said: ‘If you wanted to kill somebody and get away with it you would do something that people would accept like a heart attack.

‘They would accept he was a bit overweight, that he had stress issues, he was pushing 60. It’s possible’.

It is not known if Mr Thompson was in contact with his former wife when he died or knew of her murder.



Miss Martinolich spoke to MailOnline as a senior French detective raised the possibility that the covert relationship may have provided a motive for the murders.

Mrs Al-Hilli, 47, and her husband Saad Al-Hilli, 50, were killed in the ruthless attack but their two daughters, Zainab, seven at the time, and Zeena, who was four, survived.

'If you wanted to kill somebody and get away with it you would do something that people would accept like a heart attack' - Joy Martinolich

Also among the dead was Mrs Al-Hilli's mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74, and French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45.

Benoit Vinnemann, one of the most senior police commanders working on the case, said Mrs Al-Hilli Al-Hilli was 'secretly married' to an American dentist 13 years her senior identified only as James T, between February 1999 and December 2000.

Miss Martinolich confirmed that the James T was her father but said that he was a former policeman and oil industry worker, not a dentist.

The official cause of death was a heart attack, said Lt Col Vinnemann, but 'we still haven't had a response to certain questions,' he added, saying that 'we have discovered some astonishing things.'

However, the family of Mr Thompson say they have had no contact with the French police and were completely unaware of Lt Col Vinnemann's announcement until it was made public.

They contacted the FBI this morning when they were alerted to the shocking French claims.



Miss Martinolich said: ‘My aunt Judy Weatherly said, in the middle of her grief, that someone had said something about a dart… She thought a couple of people had said something about poison, that this was not a heart attack’.

Slaughtered: The Al-Hilli family are pictured in the French Alps the day before they were killed

Murder scene: The Al-Hillis's shot-out car can be seen above in the aftermath of the shooting, which took place while the family was on holiday near Lake Annecy in the Alps

Speaking to MailOnline, Miss Weatherly said that the FBI approached the family last year to see if they wanted Mr Thompson’s body exhumed but they declined as they did not want to go through the renewed heartbreak.

Miss Weatherly said: ‘Jim died around 3pm on the same day as Iqbal.

‘There was some speculation that somehow he might have been poisoned. Joshua (Mr Thompson’s son) had a visitation from him and he showed him a little brown bottle. He came to him in a dream and said he was poisoned’.

The attack on the Al-Hillis, of Claygate, Surrey, has left investigators in France perplexed as to who could have carried it even nearly two years on.

The family originally came from Iraq, and one theory is that their links to the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein may be a reason for their murders.



' She thought a couple of people had said something about poison, that this was not a heart attack' - Joy Martinolich

There have also been claims that Mr Al-Hilli was involved in a dispute over a family inheritance with his brother Zaid Al-Hilli, 54, of Chessington, Surrey.

He was last year arrested under suspicion of conspiracy to murder but then released because of a complete lack of evidence.

The revelation about Mr Thompson provides a window into Mrs Al-Hilli’s past and raises the possibility that she could have been the target, not her husband.

Miss Martinolich, 38, said that Mrs Al-Hilli came to America because she wanted a new life for herself and saw her father as the way to do it.

Miss Martinolich said: ‘My father married her to help her get a green card. She was a friend of the family and my father met her through a cousin.

Biker: Mr Thompson was a policeman and an oil contractor, among other work he carried out. His official cause of death was a heart attack

Victim: Sylvain Mollier, a cyclist was also gunned down in the ruthless killings'

‘My father struck a deal with her. She got my dad a Honda.

‘She was a dentist but she had to go back to school and became a dental technician. She was better than a lot of the dentists but had to work under them.

‘My father used to brag that he had the best teeth in town. She lived in his house with his grandmother, his grandfather and his uncle. She would take care of people, she would buy everything that they needed. She would care take for him.

‘She was a virgin at 30 and my father knew that in her culture he could ask for her virginity, but he did not want to do that’.

Miss Martinolich described her father as a biker who liked to smoke cigars.

He and Mrs Al-Hilli stayed married for two or three years and then she left America.

Miss Weatherly described Mrs Al-Hilli was a ‘wonderful’ person who left the US because she got homesick, though they stayed in touch.

She said: ‘She wanted to start a family and her own family did not want her to marry out of their own culture’.

The attack on the Al-Hillis happened at 3.45pm on September 5 2012.

It is not clear if Mr Thompson was aware of the development when around 3pm local time in Natchez, some seven hours later, he came out of an antique shop and told a friend he was not feeling well.

Miss Martinolich said that her father complained to a friend he felt nausea, he asked for some aspirin then got in his car to go home.

He did not make it and stopped in the middle of the street a short distance away.

When paramedics found him his foot was in the brake, even though the car was in drive, which Miss Martinolich claimed was unusual.

She said that from her recollection of the events the family felt that the paramedics did not do as much as they could have, though she admitted they could have realised her father was already dead by the time they arrived.

Miss Martinolich said that is was ‘not so far fetched’ that something malevolent may have been at work.

She said: ‘If it was her (Mrs Al-Hilli) that they were after and it was something that she knew they would assume that any person, a husband, would have possibly known too’.

However, Miss Martinolich added: ‘They believed that something could have happened but from my point of view my father needed to take care of himself because he had a problem with blood pressure.

‘My father had high blood pressure. He didn’t go to the doctor….two days before he died he was with his best friend and they both had their blood pressure checked and his was extremely high. He took some aspirin.

‘I believe it was more or less health issues.’

Miss Martinolich said that her father was friends with local mob bosses but did not have any enemies.

She said: ‘Everybody loved my father’.

Revelations about the secret ex-husband emerged as police arrested a suspected Iraqi contract killer in connection with the murder.

Eric Maillaud, the Annecy prosecutor, said the unnamed Iraqi was investigated in connection with the crime close to the village of Chevaline following a tip off.

The ex-convict was wire-tapped 'following specific claim from another prisoner that he could have been involved in a contract to kill Iraqis ', said Mr Maillaud.

Home: Pictured is the Al-Hilli family's house in Claygate, Surrey, shortly after the incident

They looked into his background for more than a year-and-a-half while he was living in Belgium, and then arrested him in June when he briefly visited northern France.

He was placed in custody in Lille for three days before providing an alibi which cleared him of being directly involved in the shootings.

Mr Maillaud said: 'He denied any involvement in a contract whatsoever, and we could not establish a link with the Al-Hilli family', adding that the man was now serving time for unrelated offences.

Eric Devouassoux, a 48-year-old old former policeman from the Annecy area, was also arrested over the killings in February and spent four days in custody.

The gun collector is still being investigated for arms trafficking, but there has been no legal action linked to the four murders.