The mainstream media for the most part has moved on. But there are a few more gleanings to be had, of perhaps the most interesting comes from the Daily Mirror, which labels al-Hilli an extremist on the grounds that he was against the war in Iraq, disapproved of the behaviour of Israel and had doubts over 9/11 – which makes a great deal of the population “extremist”. But the Mirror has the only mainstream mention I can find of the possibility that Mossad carried out the killings. Given Mr al-Hilli’s profession, the fact he is a Shia, the fact he had visited Iran, and the fact that Israel heas been assassinating scientists connected to Iran’s nuclear programme, this has to be a possibility. There are of course other possibilities, but to ignore that one is ludicrous.
Which leads me to the argument of Daily Mail crime reporter, Stephen Wright, that the French police should concentrate on the idea that this was a killing by a random Alpine madman or racist bigot. Perfectly possible, of course, and the anti-Muslim killings in Marseille might be as much a precedent as Mossad killings of scientists. But why the lone madman idea should be the preferred investigation, Mr Wright does not explain. What I did find interesting from a man who has visited many crime scenes are his repeated insinuations that the French authorities are not really trying very hard to find who the killers were, for example:
the crime scene would have been sealed off for a minimum of seven to ten days, to allow detailed forensic searches for DNA, fibres, tyre marks and shoe prints to take place.
Nearby bushes and vegetation would have been searched for any discarded food and cigarette butts left by the killer, not to mention the murder weapon.
But from what I saw at the end of last week, no such searches had taken place and potentially vital evidence could have been missed. House to house inquiries in the local area had yet to be completed and police had not made specific public appeals for information about the crime. No reward had been put up for information about the shootings.
Behind the scenes, what other short cuts have been taken? Have police seized data identifying all mobile phones being used in the vicinity of the murders that day?
The idea that the French authorities – who are quite as capable as any other of solving cases – are not really trying very hard is an interesting one.
Which leads me to this part of a remarkable article from the Daily Telegraph, which if true points us back towards a hit squad and discounts the ides that there was only one gun:
Claims that only one gun was used to kill everybody is likely to be disproved by full ballistics test results which are out in October.
While the 25 spent bullet cartridges found at the scene are all of the same kind, they could in fact have come from a number of weapons of the same make.
This throws up the possibility of a well-equipped, highly-trained gang circling the car and then opening fire.
Both children were left alive by the killers, who had clinically pumped bullets into everybody else, including five into Mr Mollier.
Zainab was found staggering around outside the car by Brett Martin, a British former RAF serviceman who cycled by moments after the attack, but he saw nobody except the schoolgirl.
Her sister, Zeena, was found unscathed and hiding in the car eight hours later.
Both sisters are now back in Britain, and are believed to have been reunited at a secret location near London.
There are of course a number of hit squad options, both governmental and private, which might well involve iraqi or Iranian interests – on both of which the mainstream media have been very happy to speculate while almost unanimously ignoring Israel.
But what interests me is why the Daily Telegraph choose, in the face of all the evidence, to minimise the horrific nature of the attack by stating that “Both children were left alive by the killers”? Zainab was not left alive by design, she was shot in the chest and her skull was stove in, which presumably was a pretty serious attempt to kill a seven year-old child. The other girl might very well have succeeded in hiding from the killers under her mother’s skirts, as she hid from the first rescuers, and then for eight hours from the police.
The Telegraph article claims to be informed by sources close to the investigation. So they believe it was a group of people, and feel motivated to absolve those people from child-killing. Now what could the Daily Telegraph be thinking?
Catch up article in the Grauniad today… no comment sought from the Surrey police?
{http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/12/french-alps-shooting-photographs-taken}
@James
yeah, I saw that little trope of Tom… RAOFL
If there really are pictures why don’t they show them. Makes me doubt it.
@CD
Thanks for the pointer. I wondered the other day why the road had to be kept shut for a month – probably it would have caused traffic jams for curious tourists staying nearby in Savoyard houses-to-let or caravan parks.
The investigating judge has refused to release the pictures, deeming them too morbid.
Alleged photos. Just to put them on the offical narrative route as a happy family… “were taken by Mr Hilli”
…”smiling..
Way too morbid!
@ Felix
Sounds like a made-up excuse!
Tom’s great ! He needs a medal.
How to say absolutely bugger all about nothing…put keep your job at the BBC.
Are there any holiday snaps outside the cottage ?
No doubt there is. Our man Al Leaky Pants has been to this carpark before.
He’s ahead of time, may as well enjoy the day out. Beats working.
He’s no idea that “todays the day” !
The holiday snaps, which have not been released, were taken by Mr Hilli and show his wife, mother and daughters smiling outside a picture-postcard local house, decked with flowers, close to the nearby village of Doussard, half a mile from where the attack happened.
Detectives believe that minutes after the pictures were taken, the family were killed. Officers believe the snaps go some way to discrediting claims that the 50-year-old had driven his family up the Combe d’Ire for a prearranged “secret” meeting, but admit they are sure of nothing.
1. How do they know they were taken by SAH?
2. Given that they say where they were taken why do they not say when they were taken?
3. If they were killed just minutes after the photos were taken would they not have passed one or both cyclists on the way up to the spot where the murders took place?
4. How could the photos possibly discredit claims that they were on their way to a pre-arranged meeting?
5. If this were true then possibly the only workable scenario (if the time frame is to be believed) is that they happened on a fatal interaction between SM and WBM and they were killed as witnesses.
Lastly, note Mollier is just a welder.
@CD13 Oct, 2012 – 1:09 am
Mollier is now downgraded to a welder:
“Mollier, they say, worked as a welder in a workshop at a subsidiary of Areva. “He doesn’t appear to have been exposed to nuclear secrets,” said a source.”
Always a bad sign when a reporter ends up quoting another reporter…
…one local journalist close to the inquiry… “Nobody in the case appears to be normal and straightforward.”
@CD
RAOFL
…[just a] “welder”
RAOFL
“He doesn’t appear to have been exposed to nuclear secrets,” said a source
Well, I am glad Kim has cleared up all that for me once and for all…
@NorfolkEagle
I was just enjoying a rerun of BM’s interview with TS.
Quite right to mention “I think you were quite tired”
Probably they had been talking about DIY maintenance in that immaculate Savoyard House at Lathuile.
I love the facial expressions.
TS put another great opener to BM:
“So, tell me about that day. You’d gone off for a sort of fitness inducing cycle through the area…”
Another great line, when confronted by, allegedly. a shot up cyclist and a car full of yet more dead corpses, blood everywhere:
“I didn’t reall have any instant emotions as such”
It’s all RAOFL inducing.
1. How do they know they were taken by SAH?
He was the only one in the family not in the pictures?
2. Given that they say where they were taken why do they not say when they were taken?
Why should they?
3. If they were killed just minutes after the photos were taken would they not have passed one or both cyclists on the way up to the spot where the murders took place?
Depends on where the location of the pictures was an how many minutes had elapsed between them being taken and the murders.
4. How could the photos possibly discredit claims that they were on their way to a pre-arranged meeting?
Shows that they were just ambling about sight seeing perhaps?
5. If this were true then possibly the only workable scenario (if the time frame is to be believed) is that they happened on a fatal interaction between SM and WBM and they were killed as witnesses.
Or that they were ambushed by a psychopath or it was a robbery/carjacking that went wrong or that they were followed.
Why did the Sun newspaper uniquely keep referring to WBM as William in its Sept 14 piece? e.g.
William, who works for Boeing (in Crawley, where SAH also worked at Elekta)
A few more links
{http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/47768/supplements/1987/page.pdf}
Acting Pilot Officer 18 Nov 1978
A year later to Pilot Officer
{http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/48056/supplements/161/page.pdf}
Year later Flying Oficer
{http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/48386/supplements/16717/page.pdf}
To RAF Volunteer Reserve Traning Branch, for 4 years,2 July 1989
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/51896/supplements/11594/page.pdf
Commission resigned 8 Feb 1992 before end of 4 years.
{http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/52925/supplements/8580/page.pdf}
Strange that his Linkein (See Icke) shows him at Air 2000 in 1989 and British Airways in 1990. Perhaps someone can explain. @James??
He also wrote on Linkedin that his association with Silver Fern started, precisely, in January 2000. Yet this company was only incorporated on 14 Feb 2006.
Katie,
Check out the front hedge.
Neglected?
Definitely recently cut and not an easy half hour job. Perhaps wanted to make the impression everything was well kept.
Just think of the amount of time and funds being used by governments all over the world on things relating to Israel. If Israel had not suddenly decided in 1992-93 that Iran was its new enemy* , then people like William Brett Martin wouldn’t have had to be trotting up an odd mountain in Savoie, trailing some obscure French metallugist.
——————-
*)
Documentation:
Trita Parsi quotes from an interview he made in 2004 with Efraim Inbar of the conservative Begin-Sadat Center in Jerusalem, in his book from 2007: Treacherous Alliance — now available as a free download (pdf) — on page 170:
Oh dear, oh dear …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217000/Was-Mossad-Alps-murders-The-slaughter-Surrey-family-blamed-bitter-family-feud-shady-business-deal-But-sinister-explanation.html
Interesting article Peter, guess that blows the D notice theory.
Interesting that the brothers were even fighting over three hundred pound headstone.
Zaid doesn’t appear bothered or interested in pleading for help solving the murder of his brother.
It’s one of the most thorough articles yet on this subject, and coming out from a mainstream newspaper, this is something that should be applauded. It’s a nice change, and Mr. Howards theories pretty much follows what has allready been laid out here in this forum. It’s obvious that the journalist Mr. Jones have also had a peep in here. For instance he follows Peters assertion that Mollier was in a senior position at Ugine, and he even says he was a specialist in zirconiumn cladding and he gets this confirmed from a spokesperson from the plant.
Now we also know that the family has owned the house since 1986.
Peter /Ruby that article just basically recycles what we’ve discussed, except that gravestone comment, clearly the writer does not know that elaborate graves are not done in Islam, it is against the culture to have headstones….I wonder who paid for the repatriation of the bodies,were they insured because it’s a very expensive business ?
Re; the fathers death. Neither son went to Spain after he died, for ‘several days’. I find that odd, but could it be fear that held them back ?
Why did Zaid also not rush to France when his brother is brutally murdered ?
Could it again be fear ? He did go to ground almost immediately after his visit to the police station.
Look at the facts…..Zaid is the only one left of the original family, the only one who still has knowledge of what was seen in Iraq & why they left.
@ Ruby
It really makes me despair of contemporary journalism when one journo from the Grauniad, citing police sources, calls SM a “welder,” whereas another journo for the DM, citing an employer’s spokesman, terms him a “senior production manager.”
Whatever happened to fact-checking?
The Daily Mail finally starts talking about the Mossad having killed the al-Hillis et al., and all that can be said here is “Oh dear, oh dear,” and still going on about the brothers’
feud.
Doesn’t even blow the D notice theory, as it only supplies vague speculation about the Mossad doing it.
Still no one has anything to say about my somewhat detailed speciaution about how American recruit William Hershkovitz helped do it, and its blowback; yet, no comment here.
This thread should be closed down unless you at least try to get serious.
Straw.
I didn’t say neglected I said no garden just the sort of grass patch people do for practical reasons & landlords to say ‘garden’…… sorry but I am an avid gardener so will be critical.
The high hedge is a variety of cyprus lelandii something real gardeners don’t use,it grows too big & too fast, he,or someone would have to constantly cut it to keep it looking like that.
AH was a busy man so did he have a contract garden maintenance to do it ?
@ Kempe 13 Oct, 2012 – 2:47 am
1. Yes, obviously, but it doesn’t prove it, even if the pictures are on a phone they know to be his.
2. Because it might trigger the memory of someone in the area at that exact time and it would give a conclusive timeframe from then until the call to the emergency services at 3.48pm.
etc etc
CD.
It sounds as though the pics are all of the women & children,meaning it must have been Saad who was holding the phone taking them.
So again this shows we are not allowed to see pics of the wife & mother………..ask yourself why & see yesterdays comments as to possible reasons.
If they are woman who would be recognised it could put the girls in danger ?
@ Katie
I don’t know about the customs of iraqi shias specifically, but I do know that a lot of muslim graves have gravestones. Moreover, if the customs of iranian shias are anything to go by, they are quite keen on gravestones:
http://iwpr.net/report-news/grave-business-iran-0
The real sticking point is that the Qur’an bans coffins, whereas most Western countries stipulate that coffins must be used for disease-prevention reasons. Chiefly for that reason, many muslims residing in Germany prefer to be interred in their home countries instead.
Where did this ‘they passed the cyclist on their way up the hill’ come from ?
Surely the car was in place almost an hour before the shooting,so that is wrong .
The photos had time & date on them…..so we were told a few days ago.
@ Thomas 12 Oct, 2012 – 9:20 pm
“I find Zaid AH very weak in denying that he is innocent. If you are accused in the way he is by the press, normally you try to clean your name by contacting the media, but not Zaid AH.”
Not always a good idea. There was someone, all framed up, who made the mistake of going to two Suns, on two continents – one owned by Murdoch, the other not – to protest his innocence. Had a very bad outcome. Like Icarus.
@katie 12 Oct, 2012 – 9:44 pm
“Of course there’s one Peter has (not) included, a jealous gay/ lover.”
No naked body hung in a closet with plastic bag on head and tangerine in mouth either. What’s in Felix’s red hold all, some clues?
@ Felix 13 Oct, 2012 – 1:20 am
“The investigating judge has refused to release the pictures, deeming them too morbid.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/12/french-alps-shooting-photographs-taken
How are pictures of a happy family “too morbid”? When has any medium refrained from using pics of victims, especially happy ones? It is the very thing that supposedly induces the vigilante mob – uh, I mean responsible citizens – to join in the hunt for the Monstrous Fiend(s) who have done this thing.
@ Thomas 12 Oct, 2012 – 10:00 pm
“Some says that Mollier was more into sales, than involved in research. Maybe that´s important.”
From same Guardian article: “Mollier, they say, worked as a welder in a workshop at a subsidiary of Areva. “He doesn’t appear to have been exposed to nuclear secrets,”.”
So is he a metallurgist, a production manager who worked there for 20 years, into sales, or a lowly, know-nothing welder? And as I mentioned previously, even if he was a welder, he might hold secrets about techniques to weld certain materials and alloys.
We are in the twilight of our civilization when governments are no longer able to tell at least half-convincing lies. The art of deception is lost.
I mentioned TPC /Bioquell [ provided by Peter ] to the reporter TS yesterday, he replied with this, can anyone see why, I can’t ?
Re: Al Hilli murders.
Interesting. Pharma company?…
http://www.samedanltd.com/magazine/15/issue/66/article/1554
See the biog of the guy on the right?
What’s your source for him working there? If its a good one we could put some effort into chasing this line down.
T.
This is the guy who says he’s spoken to AK yet had not even asked the question of how he met AH, geez they have an easy life at the BBC.
The refusal to publish the photos seems very telling and significant. The reason for not publishing is just ridiculous, how can they be morbid? One question which then arises is why hasn’t Z released any either? Are there any photos of Ikbal and her mother anywhere?
Going back to basics, who formally identified the bodies?
Interesting Daily Mail piece. It does seem to blow the D notice notion out of the water I agree. My second thought about it was-has the journo behind that taken his inspiration from these threads?
Anyway, from that article (if accurate) we now know –
– the father had a GYPSUM factory in Iraq
– we know where the father’s reported poultry farm business came from – Zaid invested in an ostrich farm
– Aked worked at Aldermaston for four years.