Alps murders: Former police officer will not face charges

A French former police officer held in the investigation of the macabre killings of three members of an Iraqi-British family and a passing cyclist in the Alps will not be charged in the case.

Prosecutor Eric Maillaud of eastern Annecy said that the 48-year-old former officer and weapons buff and a friend who was also taken into custody would be held temporarily on separate suspicions of weapons trafficking.

The men were detained this week in a probe of the September 2012 slayings of businessman Saad al-Hilli, his wife, her mother and a French cyclist — the first arrests in the case in France.