Let me be upfront: none of my usual contacts, so far, has any knowledge about the very clinical murders in France of the Iraqi origin British Hilli family. I have seen various internet reports of the links of Mr Hilli to the defence industry and that the French cyclist victim was linked to the nuclear industry. I am not immediately concerned that the other cyclist who raised the alarm was ex-RAF; had that fact been sinister, it would have been hidden or he might not have raised the alarm at all.
In short, I really do not know what is happening here and I don’t think normal hierarchies within British security agencies know either. It may be genuinely random, or not. I am not posting to speculate or to spread knowledge, but because unless I do post, commenters will derail other threads to discuss this. Should I discover anything, I will let you know. But we may well never know; we still don’t really know who killed JFK, or Hilda Murrell. There is always an answer, but it is not always known to the public.
No excuse can justify the failure to identify and help the poor little girl who was still alive in the bottom of the car. Discovering if anybody was alive in the car should have outweighed every other consideration for the emergency services. Protocols for the dead will not help them much, whatever they may achieve for abstract justice. The living are easier to serve well, and this was a gross failure.
@ John Goss : no idea! The thought just occurred that if this was a professional job, one would want to exfiltrate the people involved as speedily and safely as possible, and air transport seems an obvious way.
Alps victims’ neighbour speaks
A neighbour whose house backs on to the home of a Surrey family shot dead in the French Alps has revealed that the father said something to him before he went on holiday that he would be informing the police about.
Jack Saltman, whose house backs on to the family home in Claygate, spoke of Saad al-Hilli who had gone on a trip to France with his family.
Mr al-Hilli and his wife Iqbal and a woman believed to be her mother were shot and killed by a gunman.
Speaking to Sam Walker on the Richard Bacon Show on Radio 5 Live, he said: “I know one little thing which I am not prepared to speak (about) at the moment. I will tell the police about it.
“It was something Saad said to me before he went but at this stage I do not feel I can disclose that but I will tell the police exactly what he told me before he left.”
http://www.bournelocal.co.uk/news/alps-victims-neighbour-speaks-1-4232096
The latest suspect appears to be the brother of Mr Al-Hilli, but you never know because that’s from the BBC.
The Dauphine-Libere (local paper for area) says that the brother has “handed himself in” to the British police in order to remove himself from being suspected.
http://www.ledauphine.com/ (French)
If the government did invoke the provisions of the standing D-notice then they are instrumental in covering up the savage and brutal murder of British,French and apparently Swedish citizens and they clearly have information re the perpetrators.So too are the press, tv and other media.
From the aerial photos in the Telegraph you can see the rear tyre has buried itself due to wheel spin in reverse. Presumably this was how the ex-Raf guy found it, with the engine still gunning and in gear. This is surely why he felt he had to switch off the engine. The window would have already been shattered by the bullets but still in place. So easy to make a hole, reach in and switch off the engine.
Sounds very plausible to me.
@Zoologist “What is Fort Monckton?
Fort Monckton (“the Fort”) is an SIS (MI6) field ops training place near Gosport on the Hampshire coast. It houses lots of SOE memorabilia, according to Richard Tomlinson, presumably to get the SIS trainees into the spirit of the thing. SIS do liaison training there with the special ops and death-squad type capability they can call on from the armed forces (“Increment”), including from the SAS and SBS.
Who said he had no protection?
One ‘cyclist’ shot dead; another ‘cyclist’, ex-RAF, straight onto the scene.
Come on! How much manpower did the assassination team have? Not enough to stop a couple of cyclists 500m away?
Interesting that it’s the French cyclist who got killed, not the British one. Reminds me of the Princess Diana assassination.
So the British embassy have put 20 people onto the case! That rather suggests national security.
Including its media management side. What they won’t want is speculation in France that the British protection looked the other way and, nous sommes désolés, the French guy was just collateral, like Henri Paul. (Paul was the French security guy who got killed with Princess Diana – and before anyone calls him a chauffeur, no he wasn’t a chauffeur).
The question is not whether he had protection. He obviously had protection. The question is what happened with that protection.
Just as well the post mortems are being carried out by French pathologists rather than one of the British bunglers like Patel and others.
Listen to Prof Sebastian Lucas on the BBC London News last night.
9mins 15 secs in BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mgwq7/BBC_London_News_06_09_2012/
Unfortunately the link expires at 7pm tonight.
Shorrock is another name that come to mind.
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-438292/Reprimand-Menezes-pathologist-altered-report.html}
Note that he is still on this list {http://www.npia.police.uk/en/docs/Current_Home_Office_Register.pdf} although there is this note at the bottom. The National Police Improvement Agency should sort themselves out.
**NOTE: Dr Shorrock is currently suspended by the GMC from undertaking any medical practice for which he is registered for and has therefore been suspended from the Home Office Register. Dr Shorrock is therefore unavailable to undertake any forensic post mortems on behalf of the Coroner or Police.
So, it was a family feud, after all.
Nothing to see here.Move along now!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/annecy-shootings-police-investigate-possible-family-row-motive-8117370.html
I’m just waiting for the brother to be found dead as well with 20 bullets in the head – verdict suicide.
Maybe it really is as simple as a family feud but the press seems to be speculating about absolutely everything except the supposed “facts” allegedly covered by Standing D Notice.
I heard it was a dispute about Shergar.
Google translate of Le Dauphiné Libéré live blog.
So the Prosecutor is asking for caution about the brother story (who may have already spoken to UK police) but the British media is playing that up against the Prosecutor’s wishes.
Neil
If you’re looking for conspiracy theories then you need to read Frank Gardiner or indeed anything in MSM.
They are now inventing all sorts of scenarios based on nothing but their own admitted speculation. Drug dealers, armed robbers, family feuds etc.
Gardiner even has the cheek to say that those who are following the known facts are the conspiracy theorists.
I think that the days when MSM could get away with this nonsense are fast coming to an end.
Google translate of http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2012/09/07/le-procureur-d-annecy-cette-affaire-ressemble-de-plus-en-plus-a-un-guet-apens
“Gardiner even has the cheek to say that those who are following the known facts are the conspiracy theorists.
Anyone who even considers thinking for themselves, rather than playing the “subject” in the Stanford Prison Experiment throughout their entire life, is a terrorist, conspiracy theorist, rapist, paedophile, and Nazi.
Talking about facts without allowing the media’s tentacles completely free rein in your brain is the most terrorist act of them all.
Ain’t that so, CE?
@N_ “the special ops and death-squad type capability they can call on from the armed forces (“Increment”), including from the SAS and SBS.”
…the RAF contribution being from their SD Flight.
Dunno how good they are at cycling. In the French Alps, for instance.
The BBC have swopped Jon Sopel for Frank Gardner and are going with the family feud.
7 September 2012 Last updated at 14:17
France shootings: Possible family row over money probed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19514794#
possible….thought to have been a witness….the BBC understands…
Perhaps it was the CIA. If he had been in Iran helping them with the drone they downed. It might just upset the yanks!
For me the oddest thing about this is the beating of the 7 year old girl and her being left alive. I guess the most mundane yet still horrible explanation is to get pin numbers out of the adults (assuming it was a robbery) but that does not seem to ring true. It seems too professional for robbers but not professional enough for a well executed assassination.
Vermilion,
The Prosecutor said only the very prompt life sustaining aid applied by the British ex-RAF cyclist saved her life. She had been shot and struck multiple times with a blunt instrument. She was left for dead. This doesn’t explain how she then supposedly happened to be outside the still locked car and collapsed just as the ex RAF guy approached.
I think the issue that we should be looking at is why France and not the UK where they live/spend 99% of their time?
This was obviously planned reasonably well and seemed meticulous in delivery. I suspect it has a strong bearing on the case.
Somebody wanted them out of the UK first.
As for this being a family feud (Arabs being savages and all that eh what?) I find that extremely hard to believe. Too much is starting to stink already.
If it was a family feud over an inheritance, why leave the two little girls alive? They’d inherit their father’s share, presumably. And family members would have known that the 4 year old existed, even if the police didn’t.
“The Prosecutor said only the very prompt life sustaining aid applied by the British ex-RAF cyclist saved her life.”
Maybe it did. But all he did, according to reports, was put her in the recovery position. Hardly major.
“…not professional enough for a well executed assassination”
Perhaps it was a badly-executed assassination. A botched job. Perhaps that’s why a delegation of security officials were dispatched to the scene so promptly and why there’s a D Notice in force.
Anon
Thanks for that – I did not realise she had been shot too. Still the most obvious explanation for the beatings (assuming they were before the shooting) is to put pressure on the adults to obtain some information. I guess she was left for dead – again a sign of the killer or killers not being totally professional. Also if it was robbery for valuables or to find say a laptop with information surely the car would have been searched and the younger girl found.
If it turns out the brother is under police protection while the papers print this stuff after the Prosecutor asked them not to – well I’ll be even sicker than usual.
If he really is a suspect and his whereabouts unknown, why is he not wanted for questioning with the public advised not to approach?
The brother has handed himself in to police in the UK “to clear his name”. His whereabouts are not unknown.
I just bet they dig up and fit up some a lone right-wing nut/white supremacist for this.
Very fishy indeed…
“Another French police source said the brother of victim, named in British media as 50-year old Saad al-Hilli, presented himself to British police on Thursday to proclaim his innocence and cooperate in the probe.”
http://www.english.rfi.fr/general/20120907-family-feud-possibly-behind-france-shooting-police