Shootings in France 479


Let me be upfront: none of my usual contacts, so far, has any knowledge about the very clinical murders in France of the Iraqi origin British Hilli family. I have seen various internet reports of the links of Mr Hilli to the defence industry and that the French cyclist victim was linked to the nuclear industry. I am not immediately concerned that the other cyclist who raised the alarm was ex-RAF; had that fact been sinister, it would have been hidden or he might not have raised the alarm at all.

In short, I really do not know what is happening here and I don’t think normal hierarchies within British security agencies know either. It may be genuinely random, or not. I am not posting to speculate or to spread knowledge, but because unless I do post, commenters will derail other threads to discuss this. Should I discover anything, I will let you know. But we may well never know; we still don’t really know who killed JFK, or Hilda Murrell. There is always an answer, but it is not always known to the public.

No excuse can justify the failure to identify and help the poor little girl who was still alive in the bottom of the car. Discovering if anybody was alive in the car should have outweighed every other consideration for the emergency services. Protocols for the dead will not help them much, whatever they may achieve for abstract justice. The living are easier to serve well, and this was a gross failure.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

479 thoughts on “Shootings in France

1 2 3 16
  • friendly phil

    The foolish Hollande is reportedly sending heavy weapons to escalate the fighting in Syria. I doubt this little bit of the US-imagined Middle East cropping up on his own doorstep will give him pause. He doesn’t have the imagination.
    .
    Here’s a video appeal to President Obama, in English, by a Syrian priest. Worth watching.
    .
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5YLC1B3szA

  • N_

    @Craig – Dig the deft suggestion that there are both normal and non-normal hierarchies within Brit security agencies!

    David Cornwell aka John Le Carré suggests there’s a committee in SIS that only includes those believed to be immune from Playing the Sieve to Tel Aviv, but I think that may be wishful thinking on his part.

    As for not playing the sieve to Langley, surely that’s impossible when the head of the CIA’s London Station attends the weekly JIC meetings. I mean where would people even talk to each other?

  • N_

    If the queen went to Fort Monckton before she flew up to Balmoral, as is alleged, that would give the game away a bit, though.

  • Ruth

    This comes from the Mail:

    ‘Last night Philip Murphy, a neighbour in the wealthy village of Claygate, Surrey, recalled how police asked if they could use his driveway to spy on the massacre victims’ mock-Tudor house.

    The retired finance director said: ‘I watched them from the window and they were watching Mr Al-Hilli and his brother.

    ‘I thought they were from Special Branch. They would sit there all day in their parked car just looking at the house.

    ‘When Mr Al-Hilli came out and drove off, they would follow him. It was all very odd. I never told the family they were being watched.’

    The surveillance happened as the invasion of Iraq by US and British forces began in March 2003.’

    Seems as though he knew something.

  • rwendland

    The Daily Mail has been doing some amateur sleuthing about Saad Al Hilli:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198777/Lake-Annecy-shooting-Manhunt-assassin-shot-Surrey-businessman-grandmother.html

    For what that is worth, here are some of the spook related claims:

    Engineer Saad Al-Hilli, 50, was born in Iraq and was put under Special Branch surveillance during the second Gulf War.

    It is understood that Mr Al-Hilli has been known to British intelligence officials for around 20 years.

    In 2003, during the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, officers working with the intelligence services mounted a surveillance operation on his home for several weeks, a neighbour who hosted them told the Mail.

    Intelligence officers from the British Embassy in Paris are said to have been at the scene of the murder hours after it happened at 4pm (3pm UK time) on Wednesday.

    They were tipped off by contacts in the French Interior Ministry as soon as the identity of the car’s owner was confirmed. According to the French TV station Demain, locals described embassy staff as being ‘military type’ and numbering around 20.

    One neighbour said of Mr Hilli: ‘He’s not Mr Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I doubt the establishment wanted to get rid of him.’

    Neighbours said he was grappling with a ‘problem’ and went on holiday despite Zainab missing the start of the school term;

    A friend of Mr Al-Hilli spoke of a rumbling inheritance dispute within the family;

    He was company secretary of a Swindon-based aerial photography company, AMS 1087 Ltd

  • glenn

    Ruth: They could have been watching everyone with Iraqi origins. A friend (originally from Iraq) felt that he was under surveillance, and the head of the establishment he worked for said that he’d been questioned about him. That’s just par for the course if your not quite “one of us” in this miserable country, not much should be read into that alone.

    I wondered if it was more of this muscular French nationalism, since white-nationalist terrorists activities go very under-reported these days. They only kill at random usually, this might have been something more organised.

  • Anon

    Craig,

    If “RAF cyclist” came across a badly wounded, but still alive girl. he may have had no personal moral option other than to get involved. Maybe if all had been dead at scene he cold have just vanished. Just a line of thought. Maybe he was just there by random chance as you think likely.

    The Press hasn’t yet managed to track this guy down yet (or even name him) as far as I can see. The Prosecutor said directly to the BBC, in a live interview, this “RAF cyclist” undoubtedly saved the little girl’s life.

  • Cryptonym

    I copied the few commments on the indymedia site, earlier, just after the DA-notice comment from ‘Manchester based Journalist’, but not including the comment of 15:12 quoted by Anon here, concerning General Yossi Ben Hanan (chief of defence at Paris Israeli embassy) picking up three unknown others in helicopter at Chambrey Airport (close to the scene).


    His company

    06.09.2012 13:36
    He was set up by Mi6 in 2007 in a front company called AMS1087 which did aircraft based photography. They were based at the Delta office park in Wiltshire which is built on part of the old ‘Turnstile’ nuclear Command and Control bunker and is still owned by the MoD. He was loaned RAF trainer aircraft at no cost to help him get established as well as pilots and because of these advantages his company originally thrived however once he started to visit Iran in late 2010 he lost a lot of (MoD supplied) private contracts and the business almost collapsed.

    It is interesting that they let him wander around France with no protection even though they knew he was an Israeli “sikul memukad” or high profile target. A deserted country road would have been ideal for the Israeli kill team sent after him.

    Looks like he either outlived his usefulness or went ‘rogue’


    Watching
    The cyclist who found the body was an RAF airman !!!

    06.09.2012 13:48
    What an amazing coincidence that the first person on the scene was a member of the RAF Regiment (the Air Force army branch) who just had to be passing on his bike !!!


    Ian
    British Embassy sends twenty person team to crime scene

    06.09.2012 14:05
    In an unprecedented action the British Embassy in Paris has sent a twenty person team to the crime scene headed by Kara Owen the deputy British ambassador. According to local TV station ‘Demain’ people describe the British Embassy staff as being “military type”.

    There is developing a cover up of massive proportions to protect Israel.


    Remember this day
    Looks like they were attempting to run

    06.09.2012 14:27
    The local police (before they were shut up) said that the family had multiple passports including British, Iraqi, Swedish and UAE. It seems they were travelling cross country perhaps back to Iraq where they would feel safe .


    Drudge
    Defence Advisory Notice is in effect here

    06.09.2012 14:41
    Today at 0750 we received information that a Defence Advisory Notice or ‘D Notice’ was in effect with regard to certain facts about this story.

    No mention of his links to the Security Services
    No mention of his links to Iran
    No mention of his links to nuclear weapons research
    No speculation regarding Israel involvement in the killing

    The only place you are going to read about the real facts of this story are on sites like Indymedia.

    Manchester based Journalist

  • Cryptonym

    It seems rt.com is redirecting to a bogus page -news blackout is international, or it’s down.

  • It is I only

    I’m sure that it wasn’t MI5/MI6, but a lone right-wing nut, white supremacist.
    It could have been maybe as well Putin? Or Ahmenijad? Maybe Assad?
    Well, I’m sure that it wasn’t Osama ben Laden. He’s been killed by the brave heroic Obomba!

  • ben

    reading reports now. cnn say 7yr old girl was placed in a medical coma because her injuries were so bad. but bbc says she was stable. reports say she was walkin towards the car at one point. weird that she was outside the car in the first place.

  • ben

    PPS. the above cable is concerning meetings with the iraqis regarding chemical weapons. could be entirely unrelated of course. just in process of research.

    cable details how iraq was frustrated by kurdistan regional gov by obfuscating checks on industry there.

    then there’s a weird note at the end of it…
    NOTE: MOST Deputy Minister Samir Raouf was kidnapped
    from his residence near the ministry August 19. MOST
    officials insisted that our meeting go forward despite the
    kidnapping. END NOTE.

  • Solon

    I wonder whether anyone is checking whether any private planes left nearby Geneva airport in the hours after the killings, and where they said they were going?

  • felix

    Why is Frank Gardner, BBC Security correspondent getting involved and even pushing a drug deal scenario? Not to mention David Cameron and William Hague speaking out. I smell a rat. Also, the vehicle wasn’t opened for hours because they feared that glass would shatter and contaminate the scene. Yet the mysterious passing unnamed RAF cyclist did in fact (how?) smash the drivers window open. (why not try the door handle? The Daily Mirror shows the passenger window smashed as well http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/french-alps-shootings-saad-al-hilli-1309482) Makes no sense whatsoever. The killer targeted the victims clinically, there are no bullet holes in the vehicle, yet fifteen (15) “cartridges” are found. Elsewhere “dozens of shell casings”. (Sky news, quoting “reports” quoting Police sources, on the other hand says the bodies were “riddled with bullets”)

  • felix

    Ah, I now see that the Telegraph has reported that the RAF cyclist casually smashed the window and turned off the engine because the doors had been locked. (by whom, locking the girl outside) and elsewhere that the French police could’t open the doors (not because they were locked but to prevent contamnation of the “bullet riddled doors” (except the police deny finding any bullets in the doors….)
    Compare:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9527148/France-shooting-There-was-noise-I-was-scared-said-girl-who-hid-from-killers.html
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9524537/France-shooting-Father-named-as-Saad-Al-Hilli.html

  • Mary

    BBC Radio 4 Today were putting it as a family feud about premises in Baghdad that were sequestered by the Baath regime. They are saying that Mr Al Hilli recently returned to Baghdad to recover the premises. Oh yeah!

    btw are the BBC thick or was this deliberate to discomfort the new leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett, an Australian born agricultural scientist and ex Guardian Weekly editor? Stait introduced her on BBC Breakfast as being in Brighton on the eve of the Green Party conference and that she was replacing Caroline SPELMAN as leader who was their only MP. Ms Bennett corrected him saying that the name was Caroline LUCAS and he made a weak apology. The caption above was reading Live BRISTOL where the conference is happening yet Stait still referred to her as being in BRIGHTON. Wake up Stait and the BBC. Perhaps there is some animus within that is anti Green? Stait looked the idiot. Ms Bennett is streets ahead.

  • Neil

    Keep the conspiracy theories coming. They make brilliant reading. I am sure a few more random events will lick into place and we can lay the blame on the CIA and Mosad.

  • Bill Oldroyd

    A terrible tragedy for the young children involved and the family.

    This is in danger of becoming a real-life Scandinavian TV detective series. Will there be sub-titles ?.

  • Rich Tee

    Britain has every reason to want to avoid an overt Israeli attack in Iran, which then gives Britain every motivation to help Israel covertly and cover it up. This is because if Israel attacks Iran then the USA will support Israel. This will drag Britain into a third Middle East war because of the “special relationship” which is likely to be very unpopular with the public. Muslim extremists would view it as a Jews versus Muslims war and might start a domestic bombing campaign in protest at Britain’s involvement.
    .
    Then if Cameron loses the 2015 election, which is looking very likely, Britain will get a Jewish Prime Minister, Ed Miliband, which will tunr up the heat even further.
    .
    The whole thing stinks and the comments here reinforce that. The drug deal gone wrong looks like a cover-up. It’s a bit clumsy for Mossad though, isn’t it?

  • Wagon Wheels

    “I am not immediately concerned that the other cyclist who raised the alarm was ex-RAF”
    .
    Even though the dead Iraqi (“who had been living in Britain since *even* before his children were born”, wow, thanks BBC News) was a defence contractor for um, erm, how can I put this – the RAF.

  • Wagon Wheels

    “Why is Frank Gardner, BBC Security correspondent getting involved and even pushing a drug deal scenario?”

    Frank Gardner works directly for MI6. Just look at the man’s record of previous LIES and DISINFORMATION. No self respecting journalist would carry on in a profession that they were so demonstrably UTTERLY USELESS at.

  • Tommo

    Whenever BBC ‘Security’ correspondents Frank Gardner or Gordon Correra are reporting on a story, you know the spooks are involved…….

  • Steve Cook

    That poor, poor girl. Lying there undeer the body of her dead mother, as quiet as a church mouse, frozen with terror, for eight hours.

    It’s unbearable to contemplate.

1 2 3 16

Comments are closed.