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THE FOUR-YEAR-OLD girl who survived the shooting dead of her family in the French Alps is due to return to Britain later today as police in France said they are re-examining the crime scene.
Zeena al-Hilli will be accompanied by an aunt and uncle who travelled to France to bring her home.
She and her seven-year-old sister Zainab were the only survivors of an attack on Wednesday which saw her father Saad al-Hilli, mother Ikbal and an elderly female relative gunned down in their car on a forested road in the French Alps.
A passing cyclist was also killed in the attack which has shocked Europe and left investigators puzzled as to the reasons behind it.
Police struggling to make sense of the shooting say they are now re-examining the scene and exploring possibilities including one theory that the shooting was the work of a lone deranged killer.
That theory could be tested by the professional nature of the shooting with police confirming that all four victims were killed by two gun shots to the head.
“Is this the work of a crazy person? Was the family the real target? Is it possible that it was the cyclist? Only work based on complete information can help us to see things clearly,” police officer Benoit Vinneman told AFP.
He added that “it would be an error to focus on that of an ordered execution”.
Around 25 police on Saturday combed a large area for clues but failed to turn up anything of interest, according to the police commander of the eastern Haute-Savoie department Bertrand Francois.
Elsewhere, the brother of Saad al-Hilli, Zaid al-Hilli, will face a second day of questioning from investigators later today having already denied media reports that he and his brother were involved in a dispute over financial matters.
British forensics teams began a second day of searches at the family home in Claygate, a quiet, wealthy commuter village some 15 miles southwest of London.
Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old naturalised Briton of Iraqi origin, worked as a mechanical design engineer with the Surrey Satellite Technology firm.
The attack on the family’s car took place outside the village of Chevaline on Wednesday, near the lakeside resort of Annecy in southeast France where the Hillis had been on a camping holiday.
Zeena survived the attack by hiding under her dead mother’s skirt in the backseat and remained motionless inside the vehicle with the corpses for eight hours before police found her.
Her elder sister Zainab was shot in the shoulder and beaten around the head, suffering a fractured skull. She remains in a medically-induced coma in a hospital in Grenoble.
Police are treating her as a “key witness” and hope she can provide some clues once she wakes up.
- with reporting from AFP
No surprise there , some of the school busses are older than the drivers.
It sounds like things haven’t changed. I have fond memories of a school tour to Tipperary, where the roof leaked all the way, and it didn’t stop raining until we got back to Dublin.
To be fair, it didn’t leak on the driver, only on his passengers!
@Cormac O’Neill: Delta are sound. How could that even happen? Not enough air changes? Anyway I don’t know how the Rock of Cashel hasn’t been washed away by now.
The rsa class a blown bulb as a major fault. Most of the buses would be perfectly safe
And the headline is very misleading. It’s not half the buses on the road. It’s half the ones stopped.
@Dave Deering: there are a lot of dodgy looking buses in service, but you’re right, the headline is disgraceful scaremongering journalism. They are the percentage of targeted checks. Only operators they are suspicious about. Why do I get the feeling somebody wants to squeeze out small operators and sell the franchises to an international player.
@Dave Deering: Ah sure most of them are safe ? That’s grand so…
@Greg Blake: i havent seen a dodgy looking bus in years, any chance you might throw up a photo of one you recently came across.
@Greg Blake: Jasus Shakey remember the army busses in the 1990s Castlebar to Baldonnel with a blown exhaust. What a racket & fumes entering the bus cos 1 of the floor panels had vibrated loose so there was a 2x3ft hole in the centre isle & if you fell in you got mangled on the drive shaft & fooked onto the passing tarmac.
Then there was 50 of us push starting another hand me down on Stephens Green while the poor copper outside the Dept of Justice looked on in disbelief.
Or drive shafts falling from the Bedford 4×4 with the back full of apprentices booting along the Naas Dual Carriageway. Wouldn’t a pole vaulting Bedford be great craic.
Ah those were the days, nothing like a state preaching health & safey on the one hand while they kill their own personnel on the other.
Hypocrisy 101
@Jeremy Hurley:
try getting the shannon limerick bus, just saying.
@Jeremy Hurley: I’ll leave that to your own observations, keep an eye out for the new fad in Chinese buses in the hard shoulder, you’ll know them by the missing trim pieces
@Chemical Brothers: you’re right G, if you want to see the highest offenders in all duty of care issues. Look no further than Eire inc.
This is only to be expected when everything is about profit.
Outsourcing anything and everything is the persistent policy of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
It costs more and It’s risky but, sure it’s grand as long as capitalism is the be all and end all.
We all keep paying for it, electing the tulips and then moaning.
Very odd behaviour
@Dave Smyth: Paddy loves money more than lives
I remember back in the day of the yellow buses we could take an access door off from the floor on the walkway and look at the road as we were moving.The buses were falling apart back then, seats in bits, no lights. The bus driver “Doug” who we had for years always stinking of drink. He would loose his marbles when we acted up. Good old Bus Eireann. Doesn’t surprise me. Privatize Bus Eireann and be done with it. It’s bleeding money.
@Patrick McHugh: the inspections included the private operators, so I’m unsure how privatisation will improve safety?
Funny that there is no NCT for buses.
@neuromancer: They get what’s known as a DOE/CVRT done every year regardless of the age of the vehicle.
@Dave Byrne: so how are still driving around as unroadworthy? Is the test easy to pass. NCT isn’t so easy, and so bus testing should be even more stringent.
@neuromancer: The test is once a year like anything it could break or not work after the test,My back ground is in Aviation & Transport and I’ve often had a bulb or fuse blow while out on the road.
The thing is that when doing the checks it was fine same can happen to an aircraft. Something could happen enroute and depending on the nature of the fault the crew can safety continue the journey after doing the MEL check list.
So if they are unsafe to drive the drivers should refuse to drive them and then what happens ??
@Kevin: the driver gets fired and someone else gets told drive or follow the other guy
@Warren Doyle: Yes too true, if u say no your a trouble maker and on you go, still the right thing to do of course? But think that’s a thing of the past bus drivers dying breed shite money and lot of work and responsibilities for said shite money, you’d find it hard to get a good driver now Dublin bus been hiring for years it seems and air coach always looking for drivers at €10.50 and hour??? €11-50 aldi stacking shelves no cpc crap no 50kids whinging in your ear??
I drove for Bus Eireann for a long number of years, I can assure you safety is a huge concern with this company. All driver are put through an advanced driving test, Garda vetted also,some drivers may forget this training but the majority don’t. Most of the drivers take their job very seriously and must do a walk round check before taking their bus out on the public roads.
IE walk round check means checking lights indicators brakes wipers/washers. If a bus isn’t road worthy it won’t be take out, until the fault is fixed.
Over-regulation has gone mad.
The RSA is trying to justify its own existence, buses are already subject to DOE examinations on all vehicles periodically. Private operators working on school contracts are required to have all the necessary Garda clearance/medical documentation.
It’s little wonder why so many smaller operators are walking away from the business. The most interesting part of their article is the last line.
“It was also revealed that the RSA had refused to share its ‘risk index’ for pinpointing the highest-risk operators in the country as the Authority had no ‘legal basis’ for doing so.”
They publish reports demanding more resources but are very selective with the evidence they provide. How very Irish.
FG love doing everything on cheap now a days and will invest in nothing, closing the post offices as well, but at the same time giving the bonds holders and apple anything they want !!
@Drive for show & putt for dough: We don’t need dedicated stamp shops any more.
@Chemical Brothers: we don’t need to pay unsecured bond holders but we do !!
@Drive for show & putt for dough: No comparison…many post offices are not viable with or without bond holders. They provide little service that can’t be provided by other shops in the locality or online.
Right. When are we going to be able to buy stamps in shops as easily as topping up a Leap Card, though?
@Chemical Brothers: Public transport is also lose making, based on your logic that’s not viable either. It’s the principal of going after services that really are just chicken feed in terms on money, but at the same time we don’t accept the EU ruling on apple having to pay billions and pay billion to the unsecured bond billions who have no legal right to being paid.
@Drive for show & putt for dough: ”in terms of money”
@Chemical Brothers: in their current mode. But they have huge potential with the right management in place (which they don’t seem to have right now). They have a network and a public interface any service business would kill for, they just have no imagination … stamps and dole cashing, c’mon. They should keep the government services function, but also be multi ticket agents and local access points for banks and credit unions etc. Instead of trying to compete in areas where their lack of flexibility holds them back, they should cultivate their B2B opportunities.
It’s all ok everyone no need to panic your house prices are still rising. Don’t worry about your kids!
And why were they not taken off the road straight away like if a truck was deemed unsafe
Rattling, noisy, with deafening tyre roar and engine whine. Not to mention the filthy seats, windows and touchable surfaces. Some buses drive as though their suspension is broken. Very uncomfortable.
All you have to do is go to any school around the country and look at the sh!t that carries kids to and from the schools.
Nct is only for the little guys
@Gerard Heery: Doe and cvrt every year irrespective of age of bus, plus sporadic checks roadside as said in article?
@Gerard Heery: Buses undergo a more extensive annual test called the crvt. The amount of idiots posting uneducated comments on every topic on these threads is astounding and should lead to being cut off from the internet from spreading stupidity.
It’s Ireland get the consultants in first.
This is a joke and they harass people with lorries on the road.RSA not doing their job??buses and taxis should have tachographs and public sector vehicles and drivers should have to abide by same rules as everyone else!!
@Damien McGrath: Buses do have tachos, What r u on about? , agreed with taxis and vans drivers for that matter? I know van drivers who do 13/14 hour days one after another regularly
You would want to check school transport contractors buses…some over 20 years old,,this is bus eireann way of avoiding resposibility..wheel chair taxis etc, all going under the radar…
@Tomas: Wrong you can’t use a bus older than 20 years on a school run!
Hensheds
Is there an NCT for buses?
@Rob: doe and cvrt every year.
No first use checks?
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