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?
Former federal prosecutor and former mayor of NYC, Rudolph Giuliani on coincidences: “I was taught you investigate by not excluding coincidences. When you have a coincidence, it’s probably connected. If it isn’t connected, you can find out.”
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2013/04/17/giuliani-boston-marathon-attack-most-likely-homegrown
April 15, 2013:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSBRE93E0MN20130415
The Germans were the ones that alerted authorities to the Swiss Bank account.
The reasons for this, the Germans “monitor” these type of things !
Or is it that the Germans were “heavily” involved in the payment of ransoms in Iraq. Sometimes they have their pants pulled down with “fake” kidnaps !
The case of Susanne Osthoff is an interesting one.
The ransom was paid (by the Germans) ….and she ended up with some of it !
Agreed NR
18 Apr, 2013 – 3:26 pm. Points I tried to make earlier. The trouble is that post 9/11, US law enforcement can no longer take public confidence for granted. The same result is being created in France over Chevaline. This is the deeply corrosive result of government chicanery.
Thanks for highlighting that Q
18 Apr, 2013 – 3:39 pm. Questions still exist about the Oklahoma City bombing and it was not far from my mind but I hadn’t realised it was 18 year anniversary almost to the day! How many co-incidences does one need before it suggests motivation? You will notice that after both it and 9/11 civil rights were dramatically curtailed, in contrast to rejection of any curtailment to buy and own the most devastating of automatic weapons.
Good piece on the state of our media. Applies to Chevaline too.
“… the standards of conversation have replaced the standards of publication… When you see the sausage being made live… you can see how unappetizing some of the ingredients are… Viewers, though, often don’t listen carefully to attribution. Studies have shown that corrections are ineffective at banishing falsehoods.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/boston-marathon-media-mistakes-90304.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/backpack-brothers-an-example-of-the-drawbacks-to-internet-sleuthing/2013/04/18/8c0ea9fa-a852-11e2-b8ad-87b8baf4531b_print.html
“(AP/AP) – This surveillance photo released via Twitter Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Boston Police Department shows a suspect entering a convenience store that police are pursuing in Watertown, Mass.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/04/19/National-Security/Images/Police_Converge_Mass_0da44.jpg
Surveillance photo? It’s been run thru a “canvas” filter. Or the store has a tiny courtroom sketch artist sitting above the register.
What possible reason for this outrage except to “whiten” or mask the ethnicity of the suspect for political correctness. It’s an outrage. Then “They” wonder why there are conspiracy theories.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10002469/Boston-Marathon-bombs-live.html
There is a tragic photo here of poor little Martin Richards, the 8-year old victim of the Chechen bombers in Boston only seconds before he was blasted into eternity.
Now, France, publish your goddam photos!!
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/19/article-2311443-1962B76A000005DC-578_964x1096.jpg
Stranger and stranger. They’ve switched from the pics of suspect in white ball cap to the “canvassed” pic allegedly from the convenience store plus two FBI “wanted” pics that seem to younger passport or visa pics.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev posted online he will ‘kill everyone because we killed his brother’, according to a dispatcher in Watertown.” (Daily Mail)
Busy dude, what with firefights and ATM withdrawals he takes time to make online threats.
Exactly, Mochyn. Current events in the U.S. stand in stark contrast to Chevaline. The authorities there did ask for the help of the public and got photos and videos in abundance. The photos of the victims, even a child, were spread through the media without delay. Graphic photos of the injured have made their way to websites, newspapers, TV broadcasts and the internet around the world. As we recall, the crime scene was allowed to remain in place for the duration, until investigators have collected everything that they need. In Chevaline, none of this happened.
Granted, the Boston event was much more public. But given what we know now about the possible political and international implications of the Boston marathon bombing, how could authorities in France be so nonchalant in their investigation of Chevaline? Surely the speedy arrival of the British ambassador on the scene indicated something of the gravity of the situation.
In Chevaline, the adults who died remain faceless to the public. Only Saad al-Hilli’s photo went public. The children who survived also remain faceless. The French investigators don’t seem to want help from the public. They don’t seem to want to protect evidence (letting gawkers stroll through the crime scene). They do seem content to put this thing sit on the shelf for a decade. Things move quickly in modern times with instant cellular communication and the internet. Things move quickly everywhere in the world except France. No one would want mistakes made in haste, but 10 years?
Meanwhile, Syria is being mentioned on newscasts of the Boston bombing. It’s speculation at this point, of course. That’s something that should pique the interest of the French, isn’t it?
Hello, Chevaline investigators:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/16/muslim-brotherhood-leader-pens-bizarre-boston-bombing-note-pointing-to-widespread-conspiracy/
@NR: Why would a dispatcher be needed to interpret something supposedly posted online? Lots of strange goings-on in Boston, with thousands busy catching the discrepancies online. Lots of theories circulating as to what’s behind it.
Meanwhile, Chevaline and all of its discrepancies remain largely unnoticed with a few exceptions.
And where are the drones?
There ought to be drones.
Where are the drones?
Send in the drones.
President Obama is missing a most excellent opportunity to establish a precedent for the new era. The suspect meets the criteria of a clear and present danger. Surely Bostonians would not object to a few hundred collaterally damaged. 🙂
http://www.infowars.com/facebook-blocks-infowars-post-on-suspicious-men-wearing-backpacks/
I don’t particularly endorse infowars, especially since they’ve thrown in with the netzien-loons at 4Chan who misidentify far more people than they correctly name, and who in the past have a rep of shopping and framing persons for fun and profit.
Allegedly, Bluebird’s clean-teams are busy, busy scrubbing all info on the brothers from the Internets.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/police-plan-controlled-explosion-in-cambridge-2013-04-19
Also most un-Chevaline-like, the relatives of the Boston bombers are speaking out:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/04/19/pol-boston-marathon-bombings-aunt-toronto.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-19/uncle-of-boston-bombing-suspect-says-nephew-should-surrender.html
How did the Chevaline investigators manage to get the family of Sylvain Mollier to stay quiet? Some of the al-Hillis have spoken out, but not with the emotion we’re seeing coming out of Boston.
More unrest in Baghdad, ahead of provincial elections:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/world/meast/iraq-violence/index.html?hpt=wo_c2
No conspiracy pages, even infowars, mention the unusual “canvassed” pic of the suspect at the convenience store.
Is there something I’m misinterpreting? Do all modern surveillance systems output such images now? Makes it easier for image matching / facial recognition? Or turns suspects a fashionable shade of slightly off-white to avoid accusations of racial profiling?
In shades of M. Maillaud, the story of the Boston bombers robbing a 7-11 convenience story has been retracted. What next? Let me guess: they weren’t driving a white Mercedes SUV, they left the country after the bombing and they didn’t do it? Or, perhaps it was a dispute over money in the old country?
I attempted to do my duty and keep a good conspiracy going, by posting this to Alex Jones infowars.com
“What do you make of the “photo” allegedly from a camera at the convenience store, that looks more like a bad courtroom sketch or is heavily processed to imitate that?”
“Why the switch, for the living suspect, from recent pics from the maraton to two (and then only one) of a much younger suspect? Passport or visa photos?”
And received this: “You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.”
In spite of never having posted there before. I tell you, one of the world’s premiere conspiracy sites is in on the conspiracy! Run out of the 12th subbasement of the White House, I’m sure.
The folks at infowars are outraged that rightist Fox News is fully on board with the guvmint narrative. It would be, since it’s Muslims who allegedly dun it. It would spin the reverse, and pick the story apart, if the suspects were white supremacists or Tea Partiers.
The remaining suspect in the Boston bombings was captured in part due to the used of a thermal imaging camera attached to a helicopter. It is good to know that thermal imaging cameras do work sometimes. It was also helpful that the owner of the boat where he was hiding saw him in the boat and called police.
REF Boston
Pondering the human motives at an everyday level that may of spurred these guys to murder in the country that took them in.
Popular culture, movies and tabloid-ish social media bombard all with alluring imagery of an elite celebrity life that is plainly unobtainable by billions of ordinary people. This must provoke resentment in some of them that their over inflated dreams are not fulfilled.
Ironically his capture was surreal enough to be a movie plot especially pictures of visiting Hollywood stars at the very hospital where the younger lad is now receiving treatment..
Allegedly, according to the DM, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, “Watched sermons by radical Australian preacher Feiz Mohammad linked to extreme brand of Islam promoted by al-Qaeda… The 26-year-old former boxer also appeared to favor radical sermons by an Australian Muslim preacher of Lebanese descent best known for calling for the beheading of a right-wing Dutch politician.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311686/Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-Slain-Boston-bomber-promising-Golden-Gloves-boxer-turned-radical-Islam.html
Feiz Mohammad has a bad rep for extremism. Following is translated from a Quebec anti-immigrant page (won’t give link — vile racist pics): “… the flogging of an Australian newly converted to islam by islamo-fascists who wanted to punish him for having consumed alcohol. Wassim Fayad, 43 years old, is one of the four men who allegedly inflicted on Mr Martínez, 31 years, a punishment under Sharia: they are accused of having burst into his house… then the have repeatedly whipped with a cable because it would have consumed alcohol.”
“The accused is a follower of Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, a controversial imam born in Sydney who regularly attends the prayer hall adjacent to the library, recently purchased by the branch of Auburn by the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’ has (ASWJ Auburn) that supports Sheikh Feiz. The spiritual leader returned to Australia in March after an absence of six years after public statements controversial responsibility for rape victims who were wearing indecent clothes.”
Monash is mentioned in a bit further down, but can’t determine if Sheikh Feiz has any direct connection to it: “A report published yesterday by the Centre for Population and Urban Research from Monash University confirms that the mining boom does not justify a large-scale migration. ”
From Menzies House, Australia (remember Operation Menzies from the Norfolk Broads murder/suicide?):
“The extremist, Sheik Feiz Mohammed teaches, “A victim of rape every minute somewhere in the world. Why? No one to blame but herself. She displayed her beauty to the entire world. Strapless, backless, sleeveless, and nothing but satanic skirts, slit skirts, translucent blouses, miniskirts, tight jeans; all this to tease man and appeal to his carnal nature.”
“Another of his edicts, “We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this; there is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom… Another practicing Muslim to speak on behalf of the protesters was Monash University academic Waleed Aly… ”
http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2012/09/islam-in-australia.html
@ JCave 20 Apr, 2013 – 9:30 am REF Boston
“Popular culture, movies and tabloid-ish social media bombard all with alluring imagery of an elite celebrity life that is plainly unobtainable by billions of ordinary people. This must provoke resentment in some of them that their over inflated dreams are not fulfilled.”
That may explain some of it and religious extremism quoted in my previous comment another part. There’s something about recent converts to a belief system that makes them zealots and good recruiters. Ex-smokers, vegans, even newly born-again Christians saved from gangs or drugs who berate fellow church members for deviating from The Word.
The younger Tsanaev brother was a truther and an internet conspiracy activist. His aunt (a lawyer) made such statements in an interview to international media. Another Aaron Swartz?
Where are the forum messages and the blogs of tsanaev?
And then, his aunt: we are Chechnian, but we come from Kyrgiztan, and we went to the States – wait – Canada, no I said “the states – canads again, and the father never travelled without his wife, never, because he loved her so much, but now he is in Kazahstan and she is in the states – wait – she travels very quickly so – wait – i just realised that what i said before is BS??? So i have to repeat it very quick, several times.
Watch that interview towards the end. Pretty confusing.
Kyrgiztan, Kazahstan, Chechnia, USA or Canada, who cares? Isnt it all the same place? Chechnia isnt even close to Kyrgiztan and Kazahstan. Travelling Khazars?
She speaks like a secret service shill but sometimes forgot her script. Without doubt she is trying to hide some information she has got. Must see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uboI5TALYBA
Btw. Tsagaev received his US citizenship on SEPTEMBER 11 2012.
Not even the most crazy conspiracy guy coupd invent such a coincidence without looking ridiculous.
@BB: I see the media has added to the confusion. The captions at the bottom of the screen misquote the interviewee. She said her younger brother Ruslan expected more of his nephews. The caption says the father expected more of his sons.
The media try to trip her up with the bit about being in the U.S./Canada, but it seems that they weren’t listening to her.
I wonder if this is how some of the many flaws in the al-Hilli story occurred. Some members of the media do not listen to what the interviewee says, and go ahead with the story they want.
Being in front of a scrum isn’t easy, especially with a language barrier. Being in front of a scrum with an apparent listening deficiency is even harder.
In one of the interviews with M. Maillaud, the English translation of his words did not accurately reflect what he said in French, on important factual matters, like time.
“The Tsarnaev Conundrum” by Craig Murray (other thread)
“Cui Bono? Putin. The alleged actions of the Tsarnaev brothers are a massive setback to the cause of Chechen nationalism. The Russian government have been trying for a decade to conflate the repression of Chechen nationalism with the western construct of “the global war on terror”, with very limited diplomatic success. Now expect to hear continually about “Al Qaeda in the Southern Caucasus” in the next few years. Events in Boston have been a massive diplomatic coup for Putin.”
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/04/the-tsarnaev-conundrum/
One more observation on the “lone wolf” theory. As soon as the brothers were fingered in Boston, some experts interviewed by the media started calling them “lone wolves”. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Thinking of the “lone wolf” theory in Chevaline. Apparently this is quite different from “lone wolves”, who travel in packs. So the Chevaline murders/assassinations/what have you could have been done by a pack of “lone wolves”. It makes (non)sense now. It helps to understand what the experts mean when they are speaking expert-ese.
Thanks, NR. I was wondering when Craig would step in on the Chechen angle of this case. The brothers seem to come from a family of well-educated lawyers, and spent time in different locations in the Caucasus growing up. One of the locations bordered on the place Craig worked during his diplomatic career. Right up his alley.
These two were refugees as children, yes, but they came from a well-educated and intelligent family.
Parallels with other conundrums?
@ Bluebird
Way back, you rightly pointed out the delay of even a user deleting their own Facebook (or other social media account). With the Tsarnaev brothers, the clean teams worked quickly.
Easier than deleting material is creating new, false material, such as the list YouTube videos tying the older brother to the radical Sheik Feiz Mohammed, if someone wanted to do that. Especially with the brothers, who were known to both Russian and US services, such material could be an entire off-the-shelf package injected to the Internet instantly with a single poke at a screen (what geezers still call a click-of-the-mouse).
I think it would only be the US that could do this convincingly right now, with tight connections to Facebook, Google, Microsoft.
There’s nothing to be trusted on the web. Not what is there or what is not there.