Alps shooting girl speaks to police

A seven-year-old school girl from Surrey whose parents were murdered in a shooting spree during a family holiday in the French Alps has spoken to police.
Zainab al-Hilli was shot and so brutally beaten during the attack that doctors placed her in a medically induced coma.
She has since regained consciousness and was able to hold a brief discussion with officers in France, sources close to the investigation have said. Zainab is seen as a key witness to the horrific attack that left her parents and grandmother dead.
Saad al-Hilli, 50, was killed in the family car alongside his dentist wife Iqbal last Wednesday in a remote spot close to Lake Annecy. Mrs al-Hilli's mother also died in the shooting along with Sylvain Mollier, 45, a French cyclist who apparently stumbled across the shooting.
Zainab's younger sister Zeena, four, who survived by cowering behind her mother, has flown back to Britain with carers.
While she is unable to shed much light on the murders, French police believe Zainab could provide them with crucial details to help piece together what happened.
A source said: "They have been able to speak to her but this was just an initial meeting. They could not go into any detail and the child was very tired. It was not permitted for the discussion to go any further."
The spotlight in the criminal investigation has turned on the al-Hilli family home in Claygate after police identified items of concern and called in a bomb disposal squad from the Royal Logistic Corps. Neighbouring properties were evacuated as experts examined the mock-Tudor house but officers later said that the unidentified items were not hazardous.
Surrey Police said officers were using power tools to try to open a safe in the al-Hilli home on Monday evening.
As attention on the family home intensified, it emerged the four shooting victims were killed with the same gun, fuelling speculation they were targeted by a highly-trained contract killer. Detailed ballistic analysis of 25 spent cartridges found at the scene revealed they all came from a 7.65mm automatic pistol, according to local reports.