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?
Strawberry…
I have asked the same question.
Was it an overseas container coming in ? (I have loads of stuff shipped by road or sea)…or just a simple move.
As I say….where was he before ? Down the road ? In another country ?
Nothing is adding up.
Facts I like (and there are few of them)
Questions I like (and there are few of them)
Rants and “he was this” I don’t like (and there are lots of them !)
So, Strawberry, hwere was our Mr Sa’ad…as it’s got me baffled !
But “they do know”….and they aren’t saying.
Jon please stop deleting my posts it is extremely tiresome of you.
Just a thought for further research, if anyone fancies following it up. I should think any directives not to report aspects of the case would not be delivered to bloggers, even high profile ones. Has anyone done a round-up of speculation from ‘the web media’? Might be interesting, and pop up new lines of speculation or strategy for investigation.
Another point is that the Iranians were also instrumental in the invasion of Iraq.
Ferreter.
Everyone agrees… I think, that there is a Def Ad Notice out.
Proven by…”the lack of anything”.
If anyone disagrees, let them point to any information that did not “come out” from day one (or rather the next day).
Hence it is very strange.
I’m outta here again, little point in posting when an over zealous mod gets his jollies deleting every other post.
Carry on churning.
@Y
Thank you for correcting me but unfortunately you are completely wrong.
I have just posted the standing D Notices 2 & 4, which you claimed would have covered two of the points in the leaked D Notice.
In fact they do no such thing.
These standing notices DO NOT ask for restraint on publication of any of the following:
– Links to secret services
– Links to Iran
– Links to nuclear weapons research
– Speculation about Israeli involvement.
So thanks for attempting to mislead us, but FAIL.
🙂
If (as Mark G suggested) al Hilli was working for the Brits and was involved in persuading, or trying to persuade, Iraqi commanders to surrender, he was hardly doing that from the UK at the time?
Maybe he was on an Iraqi hit-list.
@Anders
Afore ye go…
But that wouldn’t account for SM, other than as a passerby.
What the photo says: Saad or Gary didn’t have money to pay for a professional to move the furniture, so they did it themselves? They don’t like paying for movers? They like hauling furniture around, even though they are professionals? They were moving some things to a storage unit off site? They didn’t want anyone else to handle whatever they were moving? They were moving someone else’s things into or out of Saad’s house?
The worker is the one with the gloves.
Okay, where is this leading?
@Anders
The most likely reason I find that the MSM does not talk about any of these areas is because they have found no evidence of a connection between SAH and Iran, nuclear weapons, Israeli involvement or links with the SIS.
=====
Y indeed.
Rolls eyes.
Amen to that. According to Q, who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow in terms of D Notices but was “thoughtful” enough to correct me, the mainstream media must all have simultaneously forgotten that SAH’s wife was Iranian and that he’d visited the Iranian City of Qom in 2011, and that Mossad Kidon teams standard issue the 7.65mm Beretta and so on and so on.
Roll eyes indeed.
@ Nuid
I would agree with the Iraqi hit list theory except for one thing and that is the relative who said to look at the job he did to know who killed him. I think probably the relatives know.
* I meant Y, not Q.
Sorry Q!
@Anders
Afore ye go…
=====
I’ve just had posts deleted, so what is the point me commenting on anything?
Outrageous censorship, and it’s been incessant.
I’m sorry but this place cannot bevtaken seriously, and CD telling KS he couldn’t mention israel FFS.
What a joke.
If Saad really did want to hide something, wouldn’t off-site storage make more sense than his house?
Nuid…
I remember something along those lines, but where is it hat Al Hilli was trying to get them to give in.
At the time the Sh’ia uprising would have been “good” but they had learnt from previous experience, so they didn’t.
I recall (from somewhere) 7th Arm Brig did expect that there would be…but due to “others” this didnt happen.
They were trying…and it was MI^ that ran that. (Al Hilli being a Sh’ia”) he may have been involved (I guess they weren’t “watched”, but “take on” at the time).
On the issue of the DA Notice, I think it’s quite possible, but not proven. Assumptions should not be made that rely on such a notice to have been issued.
It’s been mentioned a few times elsewhere on this blog, but media behaviour is quite ‘pack like’; one paper can often appear to be copying another, which can raise suspicions of dictation or conspiracy. However there are cases where papers behave in this way without either of those being the reason why.
For example, consider a paper that risks a court case for breach of privacy – once one paper has printed, others can follow suit, having had the heat taken off them. Equally, if a big paper drops a story, then it disappears to some degree from the ‘national consciousness’, and smaller papers may decide that ‘it no longer has legs’, and they pursue something they regard as more interesting.
These group behaviours – plus a psychoanalysis of internalised biases – is the basis for something called the Propaganda Model, proposed by Herman and Chomsky in the 1980s. At the time it was used to show how even liberal outlets (mainly) supported the invasion of Vietnam and US atrocities in Latin America in the second half of C20th. I think it still holds true today, and perhaps even more so given the consolidation of the media, and the ratcheting up of neo-liberal economic policy.
Nuid…
But if he was (from your other posts), it would account for SM at the time.
But it “may” account for Al Hilli “being called upon” to do his duty (paid of course).
Amen to that. According to Q, who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow in terms of D Notices but was “thoughtful” enough to correct me, the mainstream media must all have simultaneously forgotten that SAH’s wife was Iranian and that he’d visited the Iranian City of Qom in 2011, and that Mossad Kidon teams standard issue the 7.65mm Beretta and so on and so on.
Roll eyes indeed.
=====
Ferret you are doing an outstanding job but they are here in numbers and Jon is aiding and abetting.
They keep repeating the mists outrageous falsities, which we have corrected time after time. But they keep doing it and Jon lets them get away with it.
As I said there are so many SAYANIM here and with Jon running the show it is a complete and utter waste of time.
I’d complain to Craig but he’s gone NWO doolally and couldn’t give a stuff.
A joke.
This is off topic, but a graduate student in International Security at Bristol U. was found dead in a garbage bin last week. Some of the core courses for the degree are the things we’ve been talking about here: Iraq, nuclear weapons, the trade in arms, etc. Strange.
“except for one thing and that is the relative who said to look at the job he did to know who killed him.”
Unless, Kathy, that was said to throw people ‘off the scent’. I had forgotten the suggestion, way back, that Iraqis might have a ‘score to settle’ with him.
Well maybe I’m just wrong if nobody else thinks it.
Gary has a plaster on his little finger on right hand. I thought they were both doing the move. I think Saad looks effeminate in that photo. Marriage with Iqbal was for convenience but whose?
That is why Iqbal and the girls werent living with Saad any longer.
What difference that would make – is beyond me right now.
And contradicts Gary’s comments about him.
Jon
Good post.
Thanks, Peter, Ferret and Dopey. The likely conclusion of the very interesting exploration of various vetting procedures is that there is unlikely to be an automatic de jure or de facto prohibition for foreign-born nationals, even those from potentially ‘high-risk’ states, from security clearance at various levels, and that the greater the sensitivity or potential risk, of the work, and maybe the more risky the potential foreign contacts, the deeper/broader the degree of vetting. So, it is likely that Gary Aked was not entirely correct in his statement to the media that Al-Hilli could not have worked on defence contracts because he was Iraqi-born. He very well might have been working on such projects.
Re. the Iranian family links, it is common for esp. the large primarily Arabic-speaking minority in Iran to intermarry with both primarily Persian-speaking Iranians and (obviously, Arabic-speaking) Iraqis and for peoples to live in various places (as well as Bahrain, Dubai, etc.). Especially before the various wars, but still thereafter, people moved around the Middle East and North Africa, for jobs and/or marriage and so on, just as people move around Europe or North/South America. Also, scientists often move around from one teaching place or industry site to another, across a number of countries.
@Jon
Ian Hamiton QC challenge to the Lord Adovcate.
http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2182/Ian_Hamilton_QC_calls_for_Scots_press_amnesty_over_leaks.html
Anders, he meant Y, not Q. Sheesh! Q admits ignorance on D-notices.
Hey Dudes… this is interesting, n’est pas?
Appropos of satellites/earthquakes/HAARP n all…
AWE Blacknest
Formerly part of the Ministry of Defence, AWE Blacknest has, for over 40 years, specialised in forensic seismology, researching techniques to distinguish the seismic signals generated by underground nuclear explosions from those generated by earthquakes.
Blacknest’s main function is to develop and maintain expertise in using seismic techniques to detect and identify underground explosions. This expertise and the techniques have been used in the past to provide assessments for the UK Government on nuclear explosions carried out by other countries. The expertise is to be used as part of Britain’s contribution to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty which was signed in 1996, but which had as of 2011 not come into force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Weapons_Establishment
(Glad I’m following Dave’s advice and not looking into Aldermaston!!!)
@ Ferret
Ah you caught me out, of course it was DA-Notice 5 I was referring to not DA-Notice 4.
Oh dear, What an ineffectual misleader I am! My bad!
Besides the point I was making was that the Indymedia release is a fake. Read your DA-Notice FAQ’s again.
“What is meant by ‘slapping a D-Notice on’ something?
This very dated phrase is still used by some people, and sounds dramatic, but it is no longer what actually happens! DA-Notices are not issued for particular incidents. The 5 standing Notices cover various eventualities, and, if necessary, the DA-Notice Secretary draws and editor’s’ attention to the DA-Notice Secretary to the advice in the appropriate Notice.”
Why send out a DA_Notice red-flagging a particular situation?
If the British media or anyone else in the UK for that matter wish to gag the press the most effective way of doing it is through a super-injunction not through a DA-notice.
“I think Saad looks effeminate in that photo” Straw44berry.
A lot of non-Anglo men look effeminate. It doesn’t mean they are gay.