Ex-cop held over Alps deaths ‘is arms dealer’

A former police officer arrested in connection with the killing of a British engineer and his family is suspected of arms trafficking, French investigators said yesterday.

Saad al-Hilli and his wife Ikbal, from Claygate in Surrey, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, who lived in Sweden, were all shot dead on a remote forest road in Chevaline, near Annecy, on September 5, 2012. Local cyclist Sylvain Mollier was also murdered.

French police arrested a 48-year-old, believed to be a former policeman from the Haute-Savoie region of France, in connection with the killings on Tuesday.