Coma girl fit enough for home after Alps shootings

A SCHOOLGIRL whose parents and grandmother were gunned down in a shooting spree in the Alps has left France, sources said yesterday.

Zainab al-Hilli, seven, was placed in a medically induced coma after she was shot in the shoulder and badly beaten in the massacre which killed her three relatives last week.

The child, who is seen as one of the key witnesses in the case, left hospital at about 8am, accompanied by British police, a police source in Annecy said.

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Zainab’s state of health is understood to have improved in recent days, allowing her to travel back to the UK.

Her departure follows that of her younger sister, Zeena, who returned to the UK last week after escaping the brutal attack unscathed.

The four-year-old survived by cowering under her mother’s skirts. She was discovered eight hours after the killings.

The bodies of Saad al-Hilli, 50, his dentist wife Iqbal, 47, and her elderly mother were discovered in their family’s BMW in a remote car park near Lake Annecy at about 4pm last Wednesday.

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Next to the vehicle lay the body of Sylvain Mollier, 45, a French cyclist who apparently stumbled across the attack.

Another cyclist – the first to arrive at the scene – has described how he spotted Zainab “stumbling” around, bleeding and “moaning” near the car.

Brett Martin, 53, likened the carnage to a set from TV crime series CSI: Miami.

The former RAF pilot from Sussex, said he cycled to the top of a hill in the Combe d’Ire forest, near Chevaline, only to find himself faced with a bloodbath.

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“As I got a little bit closer, a very young child stumbled out on to the road and at first I thought she was actually just playing with her sibling because she sort of looked, from a distance, as if she was falling over, larking about like a child would,” he told the BBC.

“However, as I approached her it was obvious that she was quite badly injured and there was a lot of blood on her.

“As I got even closer, I then saw the car with its engine revving and its wheels spinning. It seemed at that moment in time like there had been a terrible car accident.”

But Mr Martin swiftly realised he was at the scene of a shooting and recalled spotting “heads with bullet holes in them”.

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Mr Martin, who has been credited with saving Zainab’s life, turned his attention to the little girl, first moving her body from where it lay in front of the car, fearing the vehicle could lurch forward and crush the child.

He placed her in the recovery position and a few minutes later, she fell unconscious.

She appeared “severely injured” and there was “a lot of blood”, he said.

Observing both Mr Mollier and the occupants of the vehicle were dead, Mr Martin, a father himself, said he was then forced to leave Zainab alone while he went for help because he had no reception on his mobile phone.

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Fearing he could do more damage – and possibly kill her by lifting her – he set off on his bike.

“This wasn’t a very comfortable decision to have to make,” he said.

His recollection of events came as Annecy’s chief prosecutor Eric Maillaud met his British counterparts working on the case in Woking, Surrey.

Mr Maillaud – who was accompanied by examining magistrate Michel Mollin – said it was “without any doubt that the reasons and causes (for the killings) have their origins in this country”.

Police have said they are looking at three lines of inquiry, focusing on Mr al-Hilli’s work, his family and links to his native Iraq.

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