French police have released without charge a former policeman being questioned in connection with the Alpine murders of a British family and a French cyclist, after "no direct link" was found, reports The Guardian.
However the Annecy prosecutor, Eric Maillaud, said the 48-year old man, who police do not wish to identify, was still being investigated on unrelated arms trafficking charges after an arms cache of vintage weapons was discovered at his home. This "illicit activity was committed as part of an organised gang", the statement said.
The man was arrested on Tuesday in what had appeared to be a breakthrough in the 18-month old quadruple murder investigation.
Police were trying to determine whether he was a motorcyclist seen near a wooded layby in Chevaline, south of Lake Annecy, around the time when Iraqi-born Briton Saad al-Hilli, his wife, Iqbal, and mother-in-law, Suhaila al-Allaf, were shot dead there on 5 September 2012.
A French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, was also killed by the lone gunman. Hilli's two young children survived.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.