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?
“Tim V’s hired (and well paid?) echo chamber” @ Marlin
25 Jan, 2013 – 6:37 pm – I’m not convinced Marlin but I must say I like your writing style, not least because it is so like my own. LOL Between us all we might still solve this “connumdrum” yet. I don’t suppose you were any more successful in locating LFR’s interviews/statements? That “Chanel+” that I think Pink flagged up has him interviewed but its all French without sub titles. Any fluent French speakers who could summarise the drift of it? As arguable the last people to see the victims alive (apart from the killers and survivors of course) anything he says needs careful consideration.
Tim V
If you were the reporter and he suggested he held him up for ten minutes wouldnt you also ask what they were doing? I suggested a roof truss, but he is a bricklayer-stonemason.
Try google searching:-
“saad al-hilli” 3.58
“saad al-hilli” 77
I thought the early official line was a bit of either 3.48 or 3.58 and the age of 74 or 77 perhaps different birth years in the 2 passports. But I also remember seeing newspapers around the world using the Telegraph as their source material so that 1 error strewn report was then copied and read in more than 20 newspapers from as far afield as Malaysia, Australia and Canada.
Maybe the reason I still dont believe in LFR was that at that time the ‘Official’ was drawing so much debate that on 9/9 Sylvie Lecoeur appeared and on 10/9 the 2 bricklayers LFR +1
Just like Philippe +2 more like party invitations than an investigation.
My most compelling reason for not believing LFR is that I still think that the Al-Hilli’s could have been in the car park or beyond by before 1pm. Only leaving the campsite at 12 noon after making sure enough people had seen them.
To be clear on the differences between extraction and extraordinary rendition, this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraction_%28military%29
A point of interest here:
“While the Obama administration has tried to distance itself from some of the harshest counterterrorism techniques, it has also said that at least some forms of renditions will continue.[7] Currently the administration continues to allow rendition only “to a country with jurisdiction over that individual (for prosecution of that individual)” when there is a diplomatic assurance “that they will not be treated inhumanely.”[8][9] Prior to the Obama administration, rendered persons were reported to have undergone torture by the receiving countries, and it has been alleged that this occurred with the knowledge or cooperation of the administrations of the United States and the United Kingdom.[10]”
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
Tim
The translation differences are causing the problem of finding LFR’s comments about a girl in the front, which i have seen mentioned on here but dont remember seeing elsewhere. I never considered Zainab travelling in the front a possibility until that was mentioned.
Q
If SAH knew he was about to be extracted he would need to be very cool to be relaxed if waiting for LFR for 10 mins. This contradicts his ‘cat on a hot tin roof’ behavior at St Jorioz, which supports their possible extraction at that point.
Hostile extraction by their ‘good man’ presumably BM may explain that comment by Zainab. Maybe Anders thought that we wouldnt be dumb enough to use an army landrover to do the job, would we? was spot on.
A family of six was swept up in this rendition:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/libyan-dissident-gets-22m-payout-from-government-over-rendition-to-libya-8412919.html
Marlin
25 Jan, 2013 – 6:37 pm Can I take up your suspicion of “extraction” for a moment? You say I discount it on grounds of complexity, and I suppose you’re right, but I don’t discount it completely. I just think given the circumstances, and the number of people going in there so soon after the event, it would have to be incredibly well orchestrated. ALL the fire, ambulance and gendarmerie would either have to be in on it or sworn on pain of something terrible, to go along with the official line. I just don’t think they could have kept a lid on it completely. Hiding the perpetrators is a more straightforward business than hiding the physical evidence of real bodies either injured or dead.
If it was extraction, we have to ask all or some? Extraction to where and why? Why do it in France rather than back in Britain? Presumably because it was some other country wanted the expertise, rather like the US removing and protecting Nazi scientists and spies after the Second WW. If this was the case it would need the co-operation of the French State (somewhat supported by evidence) so it would be done by an ally I would suggest rather than enemy. In which case what would be the point. Removal and new life has been done in the past for IRA informers and there are plenty of places they could be hidden in the US if it was them.
Extraction to Israel to assist in their satellite or nuclear work? Can’t see it myself. Their nuclear (thanks to US) is well advanced and they have the satellites too. Maybe it would be of greater use to Iran but can you see Al Hilli taking his family there? Iraq? Well with family and property there, if he wanted to move back he surely could.
If extraction is a possible there must be some rational hypothesis that covers all SIX victims unless you postulate collateral damage as part of the acceptible cost. Lets say someone wanted SAH or SM as the most likely. Why go to all that trouble of crime scene. Why not just follow normal procedures, and abduct by force and just one more missing person that would quickly loose interest. After all thousands have been killed in Iraq and nobody turns a hair. Any fool could predict this scenario would create curiosity and controversy thats why in fact i think it was done in the way it was – to send a message, not to us the public but to those in the know, a relatively select few in intelligence circles.
Further if all the principal actors were extracted somewhere we have two options left. One, that no one was at the crime scene and the story was all contrived and everyone that went there is part of one massive deception involving multiple agencies and countries OR two, there were bodies there, but they weren’t the bodies of the Al Hillis and Mollier. Again if all were dead it might be feasible – I suppose there are enough unclaimed bodies knocking around to find six “rough fits” but we have the complication of two living children. Much more straightforward if this huge ediface was to be created to have them “dead” as well. I think this whole suggestion of extraction is too far fetched for words – but hey I could be wrong.
However saying that I don’t think it happened is different to saying I don’t think it possible that some or all of the victims had extraction as part of the plan on offer. All the victims have elements of “escape” in their profile. Mollier from earlier relationship, from work, from France, even from his present partner if we believe he had “gone off piste”. SAH had expressed desire to return to Iraq. Suhala was running from violent son and from Sweden. Even the kids were away from school without permission. I doubt if the parents would abandon the kids or leave an empty car in the woods for that matter and questions at home but getting the mother in law back to Iran/Iraq might have been a sufficiently tasty bait. Or even displacement and adoption for Mollier, the bike returning on the roof of the car? Maybe it could prove a way out of a sticky family problem or to avoid threats even.
So after all this, although I think actual extraction is highly, highly unlikely, the possible promise of it may be less unlikely as part of the bait proferred by those (the killers) who arranged to meet them there.
Another quick thought.
Does the Combe D’Ire road sign say “Parking ahead” ?
If you have just seen a sign saying the route was prohibited, then you may have taken earlier carparking laybys for your stop.
(Have I driven 3Kms yet ?)
You may have continued on through the barrier not realising that the barrier was suppose to be down.
Or you may have been there before and knew where to stop.
You see a “tourist hating lone nutter” is a bit too specific.
A “lone nutter”, ok. Then he may have shot SM …and added SAH et al. But a “tourist hating one” !
Why not wait until the winter and there are more tourists ?
Or mid summer ?
You could of course pick one out and follow them. But they might not even stop.
Or they may stop, but at a shopping mall or somewhere very public.
He may have been a “tourist hating lone nutter that likes ambushing his victims”. But then you would probably choose a place with a high flow rate of tourist…than the Combe D’Ire, with it’s hikers and it’s cyclists.
And then we have WBM saying he saw
A) A motorbike and
B) a 4×4 possibly in green.
And we have a
A)motorbike (ridden by the teenager) and
B) the forestry workers who stopped the teenage rider ( who probably drove a “forest worker type vehicle”).
Throw in the fact that the barrier was up (maybe the workrs had lifted it to drive through) and that they had already stopped the teengae motorbike rider (so I assume he would have been leaving the area for fear of being reported to the police)…and BINGO
Maybe the “forest workers” in their 4×4 AND the teenager on the motorbike fled the scene after seeing the shhoting.
They didn’t stop to warn SM or WBM ..or even PD (plus his ladies) but one of them raised the alarm.
Hence….they dont get accredited with raising the alarm !
That goes to WBM. Then to PD.
Remenber that “investigations” in France don’t (aren’t) public affairs. They don’t need to say who indeed raised the alarm.
Just a thought !
Children are separated from parents in rendition. Pregnant women are not exempt:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/rendition-zero-dark-thirty-secret-services
Jack Straw comes up in these articles. From there, it’s not far to the
Chevaline improvements to Polaris A3 missiles.
“Straw said.
“Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop.””
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/rendition-zero-dark-thirty-secret-services
And yet, a large sum of money paid to Sami al-Saadi ensures his silence.
I posted this previously:
http://www.lejdd.fr/Societe/Faits-divers/Actualite/Le-scenario-minute-par-minute-de-la-tuerie-de-Chevaline-555890
“A beautiful day. Hot and sunny. It’s a good half hour this Wednesday afternoon as Laurent **, 35, and his young apprentice took over the job after the lunch break. And labour, there to enlarge this small wood chalet, as the portal has taken very late.”
“** First name has changed.”
Why does this paper say they’ve changed his first name when they have not? They never give the last name, Fillion.
What if all the media reports use a cover name (he doesn’t want to be IDd and bothered later) but they don’t bother to explain this?
Straw44berry
25 Jan, 2013 – 8:13 pm You ask “If you were the reporter and he suggested he held him up for ten minutes wouldnt you also ask what they were doing? I suggested a roof truss, but he is a bricklayer-stonemason.” I have a similarly located house and recent building work. Every time there was a delivery there was a hold up. I would engage the driver and apologise. If it later turned out the occupants had been murdered I am sure I would wrack my brains to remember every detail, but this is just an adventitious memory test not a dedicated one. Builers have lots of other things on their mind. This is a genuine builder. The locals presumably would know and say if he was a fraud. Compare with the professional Martin if you are critical of how much he remembered. Now there you do have something worth doubting.
“there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop”
Yep, they said that when they “weren’t dealing with the IRA”.
What a lie that turned out to be !
They also said “gunmen will be brought to book”.
They did get that IRA crossborder sniper in the late 90’s.
He did stand trial.
They even jailed him !
But he was released 18mths later. Part of the Good Friday Agreement” that the British “weren’t” negotiating with the IRA over.
Guess they DO lie.
And lie alot.
And seldom does it involve “justice”.
No politics there at all. Just pointing out with proven facts, that the British (like ALL govt.com) tell lies to their “citizens”.
Christ only knows what they are up to, most of the time !
On extraordinary renditions discussed above:
“The Guardia Civil… A service request for the aircraft was made by Jeppesen Dataplan, headquartered in California, whose business is the management of aircraft services, airport fees and overflight requests.”
“Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing,”
Note DATAPLAN like FASTDATA. Data clues! 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St_Michael_and_St_George
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2034059/Sir-Mark-Allen-The-spy-quit-MI6-BPs-oil-cash–set-train-Labours-love-tyrant-Gaddafi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Allen_%28businessman%29
From October 2012:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/exmi6-man-to-face-rendition-questions-8219534.html
Who beat up Saad al-Hilli when he last visited Baghdad? Did he go there for the reasons we have been told? Did he travel voluntarily? Was Saad al-Hilli on the witness list for the rendition trial in the U.K. last fall? Was his company that provided aerial surveys involved in any way? Why was he under surveillance by the Special Branch in 2003?
2012 timeline:
http://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/news/2012.html
Detainees, Iraq torture:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/uk/report-2012
September 5, 2012, same day as the Chevaline massacre:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/05/abdullah-al-senussi-lockerbie-libya
September 5, 2012;
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/09/05-9
More September 5, 2012:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42806#.UQMPXZGvUys
I wonder who he met ?
A French police source said that al-Hilli was known to have switched campsites suddenly and to have met a number of people during his holiday.
The source told The Daily Telegraph: “We are going through them now but we don’t have all the names yet. We now have a very precise timetable of their movements.”
Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/crime/annecy-shootings/48941/police-probe-al-hillis-secret-meetings-annecy-killing#ixzz2J1A9DpB8
Look at this list from olifant’s post 24 Jan, 2013 – 6:07 pm chilling.
http://archives.lesoir.be/mysterieuses-disparitions-dans-les-alpes-du-nord-deux-j_t-19900627-Z02UPQ.html
Thanks NR
25 Jan, 2013 – 9:48 pm. thats the one. I knew I’d read it somewhere.
An extraction can cost $500,000, and can be done by private companies:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/former-snc-lavalin-exec-funnelled-160-million-to-gadhafi-son-rcmp-says/article7865504/
@ Q : Stop already with all this talk of ordinary and extraordinary renditions. In the immortal words shouted in anger by our beloved Hillary, ““What difference does it make?”
I’m sure all levels of all governments worldwide are taking extraordinary steps to insure nothing like that ever happens again. Or if it does, they do a much better job of keeping it super secret.
BTW, does anyone have a few extra bottles of Dri Eyez for the poor, abused crocodiles? Could Hillary and Barack not use glycerin like ordinary celebrities? PETA should investigate.
The builder.
Was he actually working ???
The biker hearing gun shots on a motorbike (running ?) and wearing a helmet (?)
His dad (that’s nice) also confirms shooting sound (that’s nice to).
And yet the builder who saw them, didn’t hear 25 shots being dicharged ? Not one or eight. TWENTY FIVE.
I cannot believe that at all.
So where does that leave us ? (or me).
For those following the helicopter story, I found another George(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Vanier
He was the great uncle of the man married to the woman sitting in jail in Mexico in the extra…oops, better not mention it, link above. And 22 is pronounced Van Doo.
I know another “George” !
@James: Curious, George?
If anyone who reads Ian Cobain, do you recall him mentioning the al-Hillis and Chevaline?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/oct/19/torture-uk-britain-blood-government
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223831/How-Britain-tortured-Nazi-PoWs-The-horrifying-interrogation-methods-belie-proud-boast-fought-clean-war.html