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 6 Feb, 2013 – 11:48 pm
“I can’t quite decide on EM … and his role.”
This is from 2009, describing some of the French system:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1870443,00.html
The below is from MZT, excuse the length, I copied it all:
http://www.marilynztomlins.com/articles/chevaline-the-forgotten-victim-sylvain-mollier/
French justice is complicated, so I will try to explain how it works here in France.
A crime is investigated by a team. If the crime has been committed in a town (village etc.) of fewer than 20,000 souls, or out in the countryside, it is the Gendarmerie Nationale which will investigate. Otherwise it will be the Police Nationale. The Gendarmerie falls under the Ministry of Defence (Defense), whereas the National Police falls under the Ministry of Interior. Gendarmes, nicknamed the maréchaussée, therefore always investigate in uniform, live in barracks, and hold military ranks. Other than policing small communities and the country they also carry out criminal investigations although they have to do so under judiciary supervision; guard airports, ports; see to the security in France’s courts; guard visiting dignities and royalty, and our president. At the head of the Gendarmerie is a director-general who is appointed by the Council of Ministers: His rank is that of General – Général d’Armée.
As the Al-Hillis were murdered in a community of fewer than 20,000 souls – 150 people live there – the investigation was for the gendarmes.
The Gendarmerie hierarchy of this case looks like this:
#1 : Colonel Bertrand François head of the Upper Savoy gendarmerie – Haute Savoie. (Annecy falls in Upper Savoy.)
#2 : Lieutenant Colonel Benoît Vinnemann, head of the local Annecy gendarmerie.
Under them they have according to various reports anything from 25 to 150 gendarmes. I would say that 25 is a more realistic number.
However, François and Vinnemann will have to work under judiciary supervision … Therefore, the two will report the findings of their investigators to an examining magistrate – juge d’instruction.
In this case there are two examining magistrates: Michel Mollin and Christine de Curraize.
The two were appointed by Prosecutor of Annecy, Eric Maillaud, and they will report the findings of François and Vinnemann to him.
Maillaud had, in fact, opened two judicial enquiries – informations judiciaries. One is for ‘assassination’ and the other for ‘attempted assassination’. To complicate matters further I will tell you that in France ‘assassination’ means ‘premeditated murder’ where as murder – meurtre – is the killing of someone without premeditation.
Prosecutor Eric Maillaud’s role is therefore to listen to what Mollin and de Curraize reports to him, which they, in turn, had learned (learnt) from François and Vinnemann. Once, Maillaud has gathered whatever information there is to gather he is to decide whether he has enough evidence to take the case to court, in other words to prosecute the killer/killers successfully.
Then, in court, a chief prosecution counsel – avocat general – assisted by a junior counsel will argue the state’s case. A judge who would be addressed as Mr. President – Monsieur le président – will preside over the court and two magistrates will assist him.
So, you will gather that Maillaud’s role at the moment is to listen and not to upset the apple cart by telling the world what he is being told by Mollin and de Curraize.
That is important information, NR. Thank you.
I did not know that this depends on the number of population of a village.
Important question?
Is the French secret service also supervised by the Ministry of defence?
If so, then the ministry of defence would probably investigate their own crime?
Good for the French that they were not killed in Annecy.
Chevaline is Ministry of Defence investigation.
Annecy is Ministry of Interior investigation.
A crazy system, but then it makes sense that they were killed in Doussard but not in Annecy, Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Ugine, etc.
One more thing to consider!
Had you ever tried to get rid of a facebook page? I did. It does not work. At least it does not work immediately even if it your own page and even when you know the access codes (password). Try it! You will be surprised how tough it is to delete your own fb page.
Saad had a busy facebook page. On Sept 5th, not even 24 hours after the crime has happened, his fb page was gone. Nada! Gone!
That shows that somebody powerful must have had an interest to remove his page. I dont think that this could do somebody else than a powerful government getting an immediate court order.Or else it was somebody like the NSAblocking access to his site and (!!) deleting all google links to his site! Even if telatives would delete a fb page, the google links would be available for at least 2 more days!
A relative?
http://jo.linkedin.com/pub/ali-hilli-mba/32/a28/724
Mr. Iraq orphans development (for some reaso and for one moment n i thought of Jimmy Savile).
Another relative?
http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2290356&language=en
Another relative?
http://www.iraqinews.com/baghdad-politics/dissolving-parliament-to-solve-all-problems-in-iraq-says-hilli/
Boeing, space drone, space war, classified, DARPA.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
@ Bluebird @ all
Did anyone check out the below for a match to PD? Seems unlikely he’d check someone with a hand-clap, but he’s nearby.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jean-philippe-didier/2b/3a/3a5
@ Felix @ Bluebird et. al. Off-Topic
Re: The JD affaire in Norfolk. Maybe the ref to Kettering, Ohio is a clue to Sloane-Kettering Medical Institute or Kettering Medical. There’s a JD in Minneapolis who works IT for one of them.
There’s no obit for JD anywhere and also no entry in the US Social Security death index, that allegedly had Adam Lanza listed the day before he died. Likely a clerical error. 🙂
Unless JD renounced his US citizenship I think he’d still be listed by SS, since US citizens must declare overseas income and pay US tax, though that’s offset by whatever they’ve paid where they’re living.
Just a curiosity, but in Bath, England someone is offering this service: “Database Surgery. I am a freelance data specialist. I charge by the hour for data manipulation and cleansing.
Maybe you have a badly formatted database and need it fixing, or want to run an audit to check for bad records. No job is too small!”
Remember, BB found SAH’s neighbour, film producer Jack Saltman had a biz called Fastdata and refs to the word fastdata had a relationship to software for encoding and securely testing very large medical databases, as one example.
@ Tim V 7 Feb, 2013 – 12:55 am
“Then today on the news the prominent story that all dogs will be required to be chipped, apparently to control the dog problem. A chilling reminder how concepts and technologies are introduced seemingly innoculously. Dogs today; people tomorrow?”
Of course. The precious children first, to locate them if they’re snatched up by a predator in the park.
On the Predator drone biz, there was yesterday one of the furthest right of the rightists, previously totally anti-Obama, staunchly defending his little kill list, and lambasting his fellow rightists who suggest it is not the greatest idea — mainly for fear it will be used domestically.
Meanwhile the New York Times proudly announces they have always kept government secrets when it is in the nation’s best interest — presumably as determined at some elite New York coke/ho/pedo partay. Two days ago, they were crying that the Chinese hacked their computers and the Chinese just didn’t understand how investigative journalism worked in a democracy.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. feigns morality: “US media outlets, it seems, are perfectly comfortable with the term “targeted killing,” now that it is a major tool for the Pentagon and CIA. It’s also clear American media outlets are comfortable suppressing news the government does not want published.” Like the CBC would defy the Canadian govt. that funds them.
And the BBC opines: “Yet despite the controversial nature of using drones, which raises legal and moral questions, American journalists have been relatively restrained in their coverage and they have tended to report on the drone programme from the perspective of the United States government.
That is natural, says Arthur Brisbane, the former public editor for The New York Times. “The Times doesn’t function in a way that’s detached from the national interest,” he says.” The BBC, that it wasn’t/isn’t a hive of paedophiles.
Latest surveys show 83% of US approves of President Obama and the CIA and their kill list. So we acknowledge and own it. That is a good thing, as it’s now part of public policy and not some secret project, barely discussed.
NR
There are a lot John Didiers in the USA. However, the inly one whose age fits to the media reports is the one from Arizona, John N Didier (N stands for his father’s name Nicholas Didier).
http://www.peekyou.com/john_didier
I did search ancestry.com as well.
All of the other John Didiers do not fit into the media reports due to their age.
NR
Also there is no address registration for John Didier in the UK. It looks as if he stayed illegally in the UK or else he travelled back and forth to the USA every 3 months.
There are 3 UK registrations for John Didier in the UK, but those are other guys who are all married and who have a different age.
Mitcham (media reports) is the right place to search in the UK as Annette Creegan was registered there (still on 192.com).
NR
I have confirmation that the John Didier from Arizona is the right guy due to the obituary of felix didier from Kettering, Ohio:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=91618522
Quote:
wives; Nicholas & Becky Didier and children; John (Nora) and Eric (Tracy)
Thats exactly the family living in Glendale and Phoenix today.
It looks as if John was previously married to Nora Didier.
Glad to see you guys (and gals?) are still chipping away… I have no time to follow any more but happy to see it’s still going strong here… 🙂
dAMN! i LOST THAT TYPING AND NOW I HAVE TO START OVER! Can I be bothered to type it all again?!!!!
Interesting ref. NR
7 Feb, 2013 – 2:26 am – Thanks. The point I was really making is how trustworthy is EM? How much is he the honest broker or is he following govt directions. In that article the interesting bit is Sarcozy’s attempt to reduce the role of the independent investigating judge/magistrate and concentrate more in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. Eric was certainly appointed spokesperson for the investigation and he and judge michel mollin meet the British Police (http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/french-prosecutor-eric-maillaud-french-judge-michel-mollin-news-photo/151953853 – check out the priceless EM embarrassed(?) expression)
but one gets the impression that different strands of the investigation may be pulling in different directions.
The thing to remember is that the Napoleon criminal code adopts the Roman Law inquisitorial system as distinct to the British/Commonwealth/American common law adversarial approach. In the former the Judge investigates using the police as his tool; in the latter the judge is independent weighing prosecution versus defence. The jury decide on the basis of the evidence and an unbiased summing up by the judge. In theory anyway. Which system is better able to get to the truth or administer justice is debateable.
Now as to Maillaud’s “role” he is obviously pulled in at least two directions: the examining Judge and the Government. There has been proved corruption in the French judicial system. We do not know much about Judge Mollin. Maillaud was telephoned in the early hours of the 6th apparently so he was not on scene for about the first ten hours of the event, yet he immediately becomes the spokesperson for the investigation. Someone obviously made that decision. The police and judge remain relatively low-key and silent.
EM’s speaks predominantly in French but he has demonstrated on camera limited use of English. He is assured and authoritive though this is rather undermined by some of the content, the false information, the contradictions, the retractions, the changes of opinion. He also demostrates a certain naivity when he suggests they may never solve the crime effectively before they are into it; irritated by specific questions at press conferences; suggesting poor liason and Britain being the cause; giving the impression of incompetence in the investigation.
This murder enquiry not only embraces two police/judicial systems that Maillaud claimed had been unified under an EU agreement, but multiple strands internally. Even on the French side, leaving aside the kill team itself we have at least five separate crime investigation organisations involved plus the other emergency services. Are they all pulling together? Do they all have identical allegencies and priorities.
And where are the British authorities in all this? One would expect a murder team to be set up. Who is heading it? What is their progress to date? Has the Coroner’s Inquest been opened and adjourned yet? Were autopsies carried out on the British side before the bodies were cremated/interred or was a Home Office pathologist sent over to France. How and why have the British police remained so silent and why are they not being challenged to reveal progress as one would normally expect by the press?
@Tim V: If “Mr. Martin” is to be believed, he contaminated the crime scene. If “Mr. Didierjean” is to be believed, he did everything he could to avoid touching anything or anyone, thereby avoiding contaminating the crime scene. Clap, clap. If the first responders are to be believed, they also did not want to contaminate the crime scene, thus finding little Zeena hours later.
So there are two sides to the initial crime scene: those who contaminated it, and those who tried not to contaminate it. Were all of those actions conscious and deliberate?
Actually NR
7 Feb, 2013 – 11:08 am in neurological cases a hand clap IS sometimes used as demonstrated in a documentary on the john radcliffe in oxford last night. However I doubt a doctor would limit his examination to a handclap when faced with an unconscious trauma patient I agree.
Bluebird
7 Feb, 2013 – 9:35 am did you notice the Iranians captured a Boeing drone and claimed to have retro-engineered it and also captured its pictures?
http://news.sky.com/story/1048911/iran-airs-footage-from-captured-us-drone
they might have needed help from someone with expertise/experience of Boeing and spy satellites and computers? (Even matallurgy?)
@Tim V: On your aside, foreign dogs without microchips and extensive proof of vaccination will be denied entry.
@Tim V: Further thought: the dangerous dogs can be tracked and the strays eliminated.
http://www.channel4.com/news/dogs-must-be-micro-chipped-from-2016
@ NR
7 Feb, 2013 – 12:42 pm
“Latest surveys show 83% of US approves of President Obama and the CIA and their kill list. So we acknowledge and own it. That is a good thing, as it’s now part of public policy and not some secret project, barely discussed.”
When will people become alive to the fact that “majority public opinion” is largely the result of manipulation by church and state and by other commercial interests? It is an unreliable guide to ethical conduct in international affairs. Whereas once Government used secrecy or lies to hide actions the public might be squeemish about, now the “war on terror” propaganda has been so successful, the government can be far more blatent and just admit to torturing and killing people, including it should be noted innocents, (3000 from drone strikes already) without anyone batting an eyelid. This from a President who won office on a “human rights/justice” ticket. Quite amazing!
I think I get your (not too) subtle point Q
7 Feb, 2013 – 3:52 pm – Wink Wink. Nudge Nudge.
On scene in that loading photograph there are 6 white shirts (standing back) 7 blue shirts closer and further off, 1 man in white jacket, 3 men in white decontamination suits. By this time all the gun-toting gendarme in fatigues as in
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chevaline+al+hilli+images&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=s98TUd2QBtGT0QWxjIGgBg&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=853&bih=594#imgrc=2FZkVlP5bcyDNM%3A%3BmrB7XNn9gs273M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fmedia.rtl.fr%252Fonline%252Fimage%252F2012%252F0907%252F7752255099_les-enqueteurs-attendent-beaucoup-des-resultats-des-autopsies-des-quatre-corps-de-la-tuerie-de-chevaline.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.rtl.fr%252Factualites%252Farticle%252Fl-identite-de-la-famille-al-hilli-confirmee-7752261659%3B465%3B290 and
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chevaline+al+hilli+images&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=s98TUd2QBtGT0QWxjIGgBg&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=853&bih=594#imgrc=zGjQ2cVKO3rjgM%3A%3BAcqoidlJkHvhcM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fnews.kuwaittimes.net%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F09%252Fp10a.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fnews.kuwaittimes.net%252F2012%252F09%252F06%252Fgirl-found-alive-under-corpses-of-slain-family-girl-spent-eight-hours-concealed-in-a-car%252F%3B480%3B285
have obviously departed the scene though still at the bottom of the combe.
In this one
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chevaline+al+hilli+images&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=s98TUd2QBtGT0QWxjIGgBg&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=853&bih=594#imgrc=oRn5_mQ92WvksM%3A%3By0Kw8KlzpMh3CM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.globalpost.com%252Fsites%252Fdefault%252Ffiles%252Fimagecache%252Fgp3_small_article%252Ffrench_alps_shooting_hospital.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.globalpost.com%252Fdispatch%252Fnews%252Fregions%252Feurope%252Ffrance%252F120909%252Fzainab-al-hilli-french-alps-shooting-survivor-awake-coma%3B360%3B240 the “light shirts” are clearly subordinate to the “blue shirt”.
Anybody throw any light on which are which?
List of intelligence agencies of France
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of current and former French intelligence agencies.
Currently active
DGSE: General Directorate for External Security – Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure. It is the military external intelligence agency, which succeeded to the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) in 1982 (itself preceded by the Direction Générale des Études et Recherches (DGER), dependent of the BCRA.
DCRI: Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence – Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur. Founded in 2008 by the merger of the RG and the DST, it is tasked with counter-espionage, counter-terrorism and the surveillance of potential threats on French territory.
DRM: Directorate of Military Intelligence – Direction du renseignement militaire. It was created by Socialist Interior Minister Pierre Joxe in 1992, after the Gulf War, to centralize military intelligence information.
DPSD: Directorate for Defense Protection and Security – Direction de la protection et de la sécurite de la défense. It is a military intelligence agency, charged of counter-espionage.
BRGE: Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Brigade – Brigade de renseignement et de guerre électronique.
ANSSI: French Network and Information Security Agency – Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information.
DCPJ: Judicial Police – Direction centrale de la police judiciaire.
CNCIS: National Commission for the Control of Security Interceptions – Commission nationale de contrôle des interceptions de sécurité.
@ Q 7 Feb, 2013 – 3:52 pm
“@Tim V: Further thought: the dangerous dogs can be tracked and the strays eliminated.”
The process can be fully automated when parish councils equip their dogcatchers with mini-drones. With the proviso the software inhibits firing near stray cats, so they are not collaterally damaged.
Mobile to be used to control satellite
British engineers are to send a mobile phone into space to control a satellite
Guess which Surrey-based satellite company is behind this? No prizes…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8277849/Mobile-to-be-used-to-control-satellite.html
Very interesting interview with them on R4 this afternoon at 4.30 – probably available on the iPlayer shortly…
The forth coming trial of the alledged fraudster will be interesting !
Set for March / April….and in Surrey.
Interestingly he was remanded in custody !
So they are taking it seriously.
Or that he’ll pop off somewhere. Where would he have gone ?
“It is alleged he tried to open an Amazon account in the name of Mr al-Hilli and sought to use the dead man’s HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland cards”.
“In addition he is charged with four offences of fraud involving the use of the names of three other individuals”.
Anyone got a week off and is in Surrey, U.K. ?
That would be of interesting in the public gallery.
Tim V 3:25PM – it definitely seems like there are people pulling in different directions on the french side, as you said. Remember? among other things we had that blood evidence of Mollier on both SAH and Zainab, clearly indicating they stood together before SM was killed. Hence – a meeting! but this item was later completely ignored by EM, as if it was never out there. So someone spilled those little beans – probably from or to one of the other investigation branches involved.
It does seem that EM was functioning as part of the officially sanctioned cover-up team. But others under his office or beside it are sometimes doing their own thing. Surely not everyone on the French side has been thoroughly vetted and entrusted with the code of silence.
The British side, in their complete silence, indicate to me that they are “brooding”, as in “passive aggressive”. They got the girls and they ain’t giving them up, letting the official French “cover up” team fret., which they seem to.
the more I think about it and try to put what little strands of information together, the more I get in touch with my own “profiling” of individuals who work in intelligence, the more I am inclined to see that brits and French have kind of parted ways on the investigation, with the brits (sometimes, but not always, in the person of WBM) embarrassing the french, either by their silence, refusal to throw Zaid overboard, or by other, behind the scenes moves that we don’t know about except by the shadows they cast. Not once has anyone from the british side, at least that I read, lent a hand to the “lone psycho killer” theory promoted by EM et al. If anyone saw different I’d appreciate seeing the report of what anyone has ever shared from the british side on the direction and/or theories of possible culprits, so i can stand to be corrected. I just don’t remember.
Continuing on my own little tangent here: sometimes it’s useful to pick a hypothesis and try to run with it as far as it’ll go, or until contradicted by the facts. The one I have been mulling over – originally picked up from Tim V no doubt, is the hypothesis that the Brits are not completely on-board with whatever happened in Chevaline and are irate about being asked to participate in the cover-up of whatever it is that happened.
A critical corollary to this hypothesis is that WBM was indeed British intelligence, as we all suppose, and that anything and everything he said was at the instigation of his agency. So an unhappy agency goes with WBM “not playing ball”. ie, he is not acting as his own man, an individual, something we all seem to believe here, MZT, DK and everywhere else this is [still] being discussed.
We may not however, IMO, sufficiently explored where this hypothesis + corollary actually lead -except in different bits and pieces proposed by people over time. So given the dearth of new facts, the thunderous silence out there, the sudden emergence of this strange John Didier case (which happened just before Chevaline, amazingly enough) and the many many good suppositions that I saw here, maybe it’s time to collate them all under just a few leads. As a kind of reorganizing under different “bins”, each with its own lead-in assumption, perhaps.
So here is one line I’d like to pursue – that flows directly from the above hypothesis +corollary – and has been suggested by several people in the past, Tim V among them:
Fact1: the only indication we have that WBM’s french was poor is from the disappearing, never materializing PD – who referred to pigeon “French” spoked by WBM.
Can we trust this item any more than anything else supposedly disclosed by PD? if WBM spent all that time in his house near Chevaline, he is likely to have picked up some conversational French. Besides, going with the assumption that WBM is intelligence, entrusted with the french “side” of things, perhaps there to keep an eye on SM and who knows what else, just how likely is it that he would speak and be barely be able to understand French?
Consequence 1 of the hypothesis that WBM is British intelligence is that his French must in fact be pretty good – enough to do his job well. Therefore, PD’s statement as to the pidgeon English speaking, bloodied, arm waving, hysterical non-heroic ex-RAF man cannot be believed. Not that we thought it could but it’s hard to know what to discount since there must be elements of truth mixed in.
speculation: if PD’s account is not to be believed, and if we further assume that he was brought into the picture BY THE FRENCH – as a way to “manage” that 3:48PM call that WBM refused to admit he made – then anything and everything attributed to PD should be re-examined. For example – the reference to the “bloodied” WBM. This could also be interpreted as part of a french counter-gambit – a veiled threat that they know WBM was “on the scene” and they may just not be able to totally “leave him off the hook”.
Couple that now with two different scenarios, each with its own lead-in assumption, that cannot be ruled out by the facts as we know them:
Assumption 1 WBM actually arrive while the whole thing was still going down (this possibility obviously has to be considered – and certainly has been suggested – though it hasn’t received enough discussion in context, IMO).
Supporting Speculations: May be WBM was there as SM’s shadow handler, which could be what gave Sylvain a sense of false confidence about the meeting he was about the attend. Maybe – per the previous line of thought – he was there to act as a translator? that BTW, is an aspect I don’t recall being discussed here much. SM may not have been a fluent English speaker and SAH’s French was likely a bit rudimentary as well. So it bears to reason that someone be there to guarantee the “transaction” went according to plan?
Another speculation: anything WBM said that he did on the scene will need to be reviewed as to the “why”s: why did he say he did that, rather than the (did he really do that line which gets us going in circles). For example: Zainab. What if he is the one who actually saved her from further harm?
Still another speculation: remember that somewhat strange recent account by the ex-intelligence person (have no time to look for it now, sorry. Am on a roll) who, for some reason, this late in the game referred to Zainab as one of the dead? he is supposedly in constant contact with security sources – so what if this little, peculiar off-side was another deliberate “code” and a shot-across-the-bow to both french cover-up team and killers’ agency, as in “we know what you were going to do, we know you were willing to forfeit Zainab’s life – maybe Zeena;s too – so take care now”
Consequences: anything and everything WBM said about arriving on the scene “later” cannot be trusted, EXCEPT as a “code” to let the French (+killers agency) know that Brits are not happy and may choose, at any time, to blow the cover-up sky high. hence the 4×4 and motorcycle seen “going down”, the allusion to moving SM’s body, to putting Zainab in “recovery position” (another code-speak?), pretty much everything. he said.
Assumption 2: WBM arrives on the scene just after it all happened,
Speculations: maybe WBM shows up close enough to the time of the shootings to see the killers’ cars and they leave in haste, upon seeing him arrive (and knowing who he is). They leave Zainab alive (as in “job not quite finished”) and WBM perhaps provides some CPA or more assistance than he confessed to. Again, we must speculate (cto stay consistent with the hypothesis) that WBM is appalled at the extent of the carnage, seeing the two women dead, a child hurt etc. With this scenario it is possible to speculate that the decision by Saad to bring his whole family was his alone, which however, show him up to be rather naive – that or he got some major enticement to be there – maybe a promise of an “extraction to safety”.
Again WBM relays to his agency that the plan was totally “messed up” and that the french somehow seem to even be OK with what happened. He is given a script to follow with the French, and finds out that some among the French (security team) are not nearly as upset as he is at the “botched” operation and/or it’s ruthlessness.
Consequences: later, the Brits produce him to tell his tales, each and every comment carefully selected to indicate that – for now – they’ll go along with the cover-up, but are very unhappy with what happened, and may or may not “play ball” in the future..
New Question: raised by this scenario – was WBM’s “first” interview given/disclosed after or before the girls were taken to Britain? i recall that Zeena was returned right away but Zainab was in the hospital for about a week (we don’t know exactly). I think it’s really important to know the sequence here to gain some context as to why that interview was given and why at that point in time. This question is, BTW, an example of why it can pay dividends to follow one line of thought, to see whether it leads to new questions or casts a new light on old questions.
OK – that’s enough for now. Would love to hear what people think about this layout, including where I went off the reservation.
Off-Topic: John Didier, Norfolk.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9520459/Norfolk-Broads-tragedy-13-year-old-girl-was-unaware-mother-and-her-boyfriend-were-dead.html
“3:28PM BST 04 Sep 2012: Local rumours suggest that the man later told the girl that her mother had left the 38ft boat…”
“The man, named locally as John Didier, who is believed to have foreign origins…”
“Local sources suggest he left a note, saying he had gone to look for her mother and instructing her to stay on the boat…”
“Norfolk Police confirmed that the death of the woman was being treated as suspicious while the death of the man was not suspicious indicating that nobody else was involved in his death.”
Looks suspicious to me, what with all the weights for a suicide. Did he have a red herring stuffed in his mouth?
“It is believed that police are struggling to formally identify Didier as he has no criminal record in the U.K. so his fingerprints or DNA are not on record.”
So how did they eventually formally identify the body? Presumably with DNA or dental records provided by US relatives, or did the relatives personally ID the body. Did they do the ID based on a photo provided by the family, like Gareth Williams? They say his brother and sister-in-law attended the inquest, but do not give their names or their US city.
http://www.norwichadvertiser24.co.uk/news/norfolk_broads_death_inquest_hears_that_woman_was_thrown_in_river_by_man_who_then_took_his_own_life_1_1831687
“After discovering the boat had been reported missing by the hire company he approached the cruiser which had the curtains shut but the engine running.”
Why would he start the engine before suiciding? To charge batteries and considerately provide power for lights and fridge for the girl? Why doesn’t she shut off the engine if it’s running all day?
It seems she was at least lightly drugged, not to hear the fight her mother allegedly engaged in or to hear his suicide and leave the engine running. Did he start the engine to mask the noise of him going overboard?
NR
7 Feb, 2013 – 6:34 pm LOL. It might come in useful in identifying the people in charge of the dog though mighten it? Or potentially wher the dog (and its handler) has been?