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?
Straw is quite right about not assuming that all maternity leave is taken after the birth. See below for detail about France.
I also should point out that it is common for fathers to save up their annual leave and take it around the time of the birth in order to be present and available. So M. Mollier could have done this
Source: http://www.strocel.com/maternity-leave-in-france/
New mothers in France receive 6 weeks of maternity leave before their child’s birth, and 10 weeks after. For your third (or fourth or fifth or …) child this goes up to 8 weeks before and 18 weeks after. In the event of twins or triplets mothers are eligible for either 34 or 46 weeks total leave, 22 of which are taken after the babies are born. If a baby comes early then the extra weeks of prenatal leave are added on at the end, and if a baby comes late the leave is extended so that you receive the total allowed weeks after the baby is born.
@Tim V
Excellent analysis. Is the “official graphic” you refer to this one? http://forums.france2.fr/france2/Non-elucide/tuerie-chevaline-savoie-sujet_216_7.htm#t51509
It reminds me the 9/11 official graphic of the twin towers in cross-section, showing ridiculously small steel cores. These were used to justify the official line that as soon as they’d caught fire it was a foregone conclusion they’d collapse.
:rolleyes:
One small request: paragraphs please! Would make reading your very valuable contributions so much easier.
🙂
What a coincidence, Bluebird, that you have found a mechanical engineer who studied at a technical institute in Lyon.
http://www.cdefi.fr/0693550J/0/fiche___ecole/&RH=1141903513924
The children of ordinary welders have extraordinary friends these days. Chevaline is home to the genie en herbe.
@P
I also should point out that it is common for fathers to save up their annual leave and take it around the time of the birth in order to be present and available. So M. Mollier could have done this
Yes he could have, but 3 years is one heck of a lot of annual leave. (I make it 26 years worth, at 6 weeks leave per year.)
And also, if this is the case, why would SM have been reported as being on three years’ paternity leave?
Not very convincing, to my way of thinking.
Good 360 views of the area (lower two pictres).
( http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2012/10/09/tuerie-de-chevaline-la-route-de-la-combe-d-ire-est-rouverte#jimage=A049B5CA-3D02-4BC2-BE1E-B044A63CD7CD )
Ha ha, Ferret! Quite.
No, I mean (1) save up annual leave for around the time of the birth, then (2) apply for parental leave when the maternity leave runs out.
As regards the position of bodies this appears to me to be another false trail. Invariably Mollier is shown sprawling to front right quarter of the BMW. Now is this Martin’s account of where he “found” him or where he dragged him to? This has never been stated. Further wherever the Fire and Police had found him he wasn’t “sprawled” because they commented on how he lay with his arms by his side. However neither of these reports fit the facts. There is no observable bloodstain in the front right quadrant of the car. This is a man who has been shot twice in the head and five times in the body and wearing only cycling kit. The only blood stains appear about 2 or 3 m off the near side of the car, so this MUST be where Mollier lay if he was shot so badly. He was in no danger there both by virtue of being dead and by virtue of his position not “in front of the car” but by the side of it. What prompted WBM to (1) give false account (2) move the body to the other side of the car (if he did)?
Some miscellaneous engineers are mentioned here:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091021_curious_case_adlene_hicheur
Not to worry, though, because bright people are terrible failures at building bombs, according to the article.
This is how these types of articles work.
It’s what people like Adlene Hicheur did, and did very well, that is at the heart of the matter. Sometimes it’s a matter of what they know.
Tim,
He was checking Molly’s pulse. That’s what Billy said.
Shot twice in the head (prob at close range) and a few times in his torso….and anyone would of course, check for a pulse !!!!
this found through lurking at twitter –
http://twitter.com/leo_mollier Leo △ @leo_mollier
Louis. Mon petit frère. http://instagr.am/p/RtM3_-Fanf/
@P
Ah, I see!
🙂
So you agree that it’s very strange that he was reported as being on 3 years’ paternity leave, when this seems to be impossible according to French law?
Finally on the subject of mis-information there is the important subject of weapon. Why was the Skorpion suggested if there was not firm scientific evidence to support it. Could it be that it was just to deflect towards “Serbian Para Military groups” for which we can find no motive unless merely acting as paid mercenaries? Then the suggestion of the Luger PO8 which apparently is the 9 mm model anyway, the PO4 being the 7.65 model so we are told. But the convincing evidence in my mind that this is false information to suggest someone using a rather obsolete weapon, (leaving aside all the problems associated with the fact that the standard model was 8 shots and being tricky to use with the mechanism jumping up into the line of sight etc) is the fact that the cases are ejected UP AND TO THE RIGHT on all models. That’s UP AND TO THE RIGHT! All graphics boasting Annecy Prosector as source, place pile of discarded cases adjacent to rear off side of BMW. Shots were clearly fired through front and back off side of the car. Even if held at right angles to the vertical, a Luger would NOT have ejected to this location.
@Tim
Tim I don’t know if you ever saw the magenta picture but I always thought the BMW was face in by the sign and it looked on that to have blood by the drivers door and at the front ,I didnt manage to come up with a scenario to fit this because of the body of SM being on the other side of the layby plus people thought the magenta pic was not reliable so I gave up, thats why I wanted to know where the bike was ,EM said “thrown in the corner of the parking ” but now they show it more or less in the road which is not what I would call a corner ,but using the magenta pic for a guide would look like someone was injured stood in front of the car and by the drivers door before it reversed .
Magenta pic also seemed to show possible blood in the wood over the road from where the BMW’s boot would be and the police seemed to have taped that bit off ,I cannot say whether the magenta pic is reliable but it sure painted a picture .
James
8 Nov, 2012 – 9:14 pm he also said he moved Mollier to safe place as he said he did Zainab “in case the car lurched forward”. We must assume therefore that where the emergency people found him was where Martin placed him. But Martin could not have found him in front of the car as he said nor was there any need to move him. The blood stain is unarguably where it is and there are no visible blood stains elsewhere commensurate with a big healthy man with multiple shot wounds.
Incidentally to pick up the Luger point made above on several photographs it appears that the ejected cartridges actually caused a little patch of charred forest floor next to the rear off side door.
@ferret
No, I don’t agree. The early days with a baby are quite fluid. I think it’s quite possible that the parents might talk about what they planned to do (that is, take the three years of parental leave permissable in French law: one year + one year + one year) when maternity leave ended. And other people would take that as “fact” (“he’s on three years parental leave”) without looking into the administrative detail of its exact starting date. And they would then say that to random reporters who then churned it out as “fact”.
I’ve no idea what actually happened here but I have looked into this kind of new baby vagueness/ parental leave/ childcare stuff as part of my work.
Tim…
He also said “the cyclist that had been ahead of him, looked to be having a rest….” !!! etc, etc…
Infact if he said that he had been eating bread and cheese that morning, I would stop and ask myself “did he ?”
The story given in that television interview was just make believe.
All of the “facts” are made up.
Mollier, the “chief metal dude” / “spot welder” ! Really !
Three years leave ! Really !
Firstly I can not figure out why the hell a “roadracer” would head up that track in the first place.
To come down again ??? To continue across the nountain, around hairpins and down the other side ??? Was this “a day out” for him !
All complete rubbish.
@Oliphant
Great finds! How can we see the rest of Leo’s snaps on instagram? I can only see the one you linked and can’t see how to navigate…
@P
Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree then. Personally I agree about the fluidity of things with new baby… so I can’t see how or why anyone would have decided in advance they’d take the whole three years when they didn’t have to say so up front… and hadn’t even started it yet.
The fact is that he wasn’t, and couldn’t have been, on paternity leave of any kind. (And even if he had saved up annual leave, that’s still not the same as paternity leave.)
And why anyone would quote it as fact rather than intention, if that’s even what it was, is strange once again.
It was widely quoted in many different media that he was on three years’ paternity leave, which is at best inaccurate and at worst just plain wrong.
Highly suspicious in my book.
You can struggle to try and make it fit an explanation that seems “normal” but it’s the same kind of logical contortion you have to go through to try and get the shooting to match up with the movements of the car, as Tim V is having a good go at.
Real evidence doesn’t require contortion to fit the plot, in fact it makes things simpler not more complex.
Everything here makes things seem more complex, requiring complex and far-fetched explanations.
And THAT is what makes is all so suspicious, and is the tell-tale sign that strange things are afoot.
@Olifant: Isn’t that adorable — the baby, not the thugs with the middle finger salute, and the other stuff. Parents really don’t know what kids get up to online.
@ Ferret Go to the Twitter address given above; keep scrolling down for more tweets. (many more…) One is best wishes to uncle, temoin de jehovah. One re-tweet from mother. At her account tweets are all short snappy sexy jokes.
According to a Professor of French, all the catch-phrases are quite normal apart from these two: “there are no more Indians but there are still arrows”, and “not all stars are in Hollywood”.
Here’s a slightly revised translation, with the Prof’s help in getting some of the catch-phrases a bit more accurate.
Frédéric BRUN
aka “BRINDILLE”
He used to say: “If God wanted to pull me by
the hair to lift me up to
Heaven, he would not succeed.” God
finally succeeded and
called him to His side on 29
Sept 2012.
His sudden disappearance leaves us
with an immense void, but
our hearts are filled for
ever with marvellous and
unforgettable memories.
The little nicknames which he
regularly give us,
and his catch-phrases: “that?!
– uh-uh”, “not all
stars are in
Hollywood”, “there are no more Indians
but there are still
arrows”, “you see, right?”,
“in other words”, “see
what I mean?”, will remain
in our memories.
We will all remember
“Brindille” as a
joyful, generous and
attentive person.
“Brindille” forever in
our hearts and in our thoughts.
@Tim V: I think that Serbian hitmen are pulled out of hats like rabbits to explain things:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109602/Jill-Dando-murdered-Serbian-hitman.htm
They must be giving some serious competition to wolves in these tales.
WOW !
“La vie continue” from Leo.
A bit of a break, then he’s back with that !
Guess there’s no love lost there !!!!!
Lets face it, “Father of the Year” wasn’t going to be won in that “carpark” !
Pink
8 Nov, 2012 – 9:22 pm – if it was Hilli’s car at the sign end the shooting had to start there. There is simply no casualty evidence that end. You would also have to be able to explain how Mollier and Zainab ended up at the other end and were shot there. Next the BMW is rear wheel drive. If facing in at the sign end the skid marks are in wrong place (Only the power wheels skid on take-off) In addition you can see the steering wheel is closer to the road. Clearly if the BMW was facing out at the top end and did a circle turn, it would have ended up facing in at the bottom. That it did not proves the skid/semi circle marks not Hilli’s but another vehicle’s which I’m assuming was the killer’s.
@ Tim V 8 Nov, 2012 – 7:07 pm
“Yes Q 8 Nov, 2012 – 4:00 pm
I wouldn’t want to great an emphasis in the finer points of these synchronicities but I do think the choice of place is highly suggestive of planning by those with a honed sense of history, literature and taking pleasure in nuanced word games. We see it time and time again in military and intelligence circles. Choosing names for weapons, ships, battle plans and secret operations for example. A thing is not just a “thing”, an operation is not just an “operation”. “
The lengths these dudes go to in naming operations. Super Antelope was code for an American method and when the British decided to do the same they couldn’t just call it Fish ‘n’ Chips or something easy but ring up the zoo to find an equivalent.
How did Super Antelope become Chevaline? According to Sir Kevin Tebbit of the MOD (latterly Permanent Secretary):
“There was a day when Lord Carrington came into the office and said, ‘We have decided we are going to do Super Antelope alone and so we had better rename it.’ I rang up the London Zoo and I said, ‘I can’t tell you why I want to ask this question, but this is the Ministry of Defence. Can you imagine an animal that is like a large antelope? Do you have any on your list?’ And they said, ‘There is this South African creature called a Chevaline’, and I thought that sounded rather good.”
Oops! Sorry Ferret
8 Nov, 2012 – 8:50 pm. Will try to do better lol
@ Suhyal Saadi 8 Sep, 2012 – 4:23 pm
“SSTL is part of EADS (European Aerospace Defence Systems). Think of Hakluyt/Shell/BP et al. Al-Hilli may well have been privy to some very interesting work.”
Suhyal picked up on the Hakluyt connection way back. I only came across it thru the Heywood murder in China.
OK, I’ve looked at a few pages of death notices now from Le Dauphine Libere, where the strange announcement appeared regarding Frederic Brun.
Several things now stand out:
1. It is the only ad to use the word “disparition” (disappearance) rather than the word “deces” (deceased), apart from the adjoining notice re Sylvain Mollier. Only these two ads use this phrase.
2. It is the only unsigned notice. All the others say who they are from, who the grieving relatives and/or friends are.
3. It is the only one which posts the catch-phrases of the deceased.
4. It is the only one with a picture of the deceased.
Shelock H, thanks for the tip on how to search, using the death notice index. Much appreciated.
Ferret
8 Nov, 2012 – 8:50 pm Yup that’s the graphic at http://www.cdefi.fr/0693550J/0/fiche___ecole/&RH=1141903513924
I would urge everyone to view it to see how illogical and impossible it is. I would suggest the only reason for it because the police do not want to admit another vehicle.
And how about this statement that the police have TRACED the green 4×4 which they say was a forestry vehicle. So the Forestry Dept. had staff at the killing?????????????? You couldn’t make this stuff up!
Oh, and I’ve had two responses to my post on the French forum, the first one posted a google translate of the notice(!) and added that Frederic Brun was also a cyclist. Is this known already?
The second one wrote this:
“All these expressions are “idiomatics”, some fun words in fact. The man you are speaking about is dead by a normal way.
There are no relation with the murder case.”
Move along here folks, nothing to see… (even in France).