POLICE are pinning their hopes on the seven-year-old daughter of victims Saad and Iqbal al Hilli holding the key to tracing the killers.
Final confirmation of the victims' names came from the couple's youngest girl Zeena, four. But when police officers asked what she could recall, she told them she did not see anything because she "dived under her mother's legs".
Investigators are now hoping her older sister Zainab, who is in a medically induced coma, might provide the vital clues they are looking for as she is the only other witness.
Doctors do not know when she will be fit enough to be questioned.
Police say Zainab, who was shot in the shoulder, may only have been spared because the killers had run out of bullets.
"When doctors give us the green light, she will be questioned," said chief investigator Eric Maillaud. "It's awful for a child, a victim, to be a key witness, because she will have to talk about her own suffering, but we do hope that at seven she is old enough to tell us what she saw. She can tell us the colour of skin, the colour of clothes and other information we need."
Mr Maillaud added: "Zeena talked about fear, terror, and at the beginning of this carnage she was already under the knees of her mother and this other woman. The little girl was terrorised, she was in the vehicle, she rushed under her mother's legs and she heard but she didn't see anything. Very soon we have to make sure she comes to the safety of her family and starts to calm down and forget this nightmare."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article