PARIS (AP) - The younger daughter of a British-Iraqi couple slain while vacationing in the French Alps has returned to Britain, while her badly wounded older sister has come out of an artificial coma.
Four-year-old Zeena and 7-year-old Zaina survived a vicious shooting that killed their parents, Saad and Iqbal al-Hilli, as well as a still-unidentified older woman and a French man who apparently happened to be passing by on his bicycle.
French police have been scrambling to hunt down leads since Wednesday's rampage, while relatives of the couple arrived in France to take care of the girls. Authorities say they are probing whether an alleged financial dispute between Saad al-Hilli and his brother Zaid played a role, though the surviving brother has denied any conflict.
Eric Maillaud, the prosecutor for Annecy near where the shootings occurred, said Zeena had returned to Britain along with two relatives.
The older daughter, Zaina, was shot in the shoulder and took violent blows to the head during the attack. She underwent two operations and had been placed in a medically induced coma. She has come out of the coma but remains on sedatives and cannot yet talk to investigators, Maillaud wrote Sunday.