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The dogs were to look for Zeena not the killer .
23.00 (21.00 BST): Police learn that the couple had a second child with them after speaking with campers at Le Solitaire du Lac in Saint Jorioz. A helicopter and search dogs were scrambled, and infrared technology was deployed to find her.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9525866/France-shooting-Timeline.html
“A British cyclist, who is a former RAF serviceman, has told police he saw a green four-wheel drive car and a motorbike speeding towards the scene before he arrived, police said today.
It is the first suggestion of another vehicle being involved other than the 4×4.”
“Police were also expected to appeal for witnesses today after one described a dark green 4×4 vehicle at the crime scene, which was discovered by a British cyclist.
The rider, a former RAF serviceman, would have almost certainly seen the killer or killer’s car as it fled, a police source said.
There is only one road to and from the crime scene, and the only other route would be through the mountain on foot or bike, he added.”
2:37PM BST 07 Sep 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9528207/France-shooting-Witness-saw-4×4-and-motorbike-at-scene.html
Pink I wonder:
after the slaughter,
was local policeman Eric Devouassoux allowed at the crime scene?
Tuesday 11 September 2012 11:38 BST
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/an-alpine-murder-mystery-why-were-the-al-hillis-shot-dead-8125292.html
Laurent Fillion-Robin, a 38-year-old builder, also claimed there was no sign of any vehicle following the family. He was working on a house near Chevaline when he saw the maroon BMW drive past between 2.30pm and 3pm.
He told police he had seen a green 4×4 and a motorbike heading in the direction of the crime scene beforehand. Fillion-Robin’s testament points towards an agreed rendezvous between Al-Hilli and his eventual killers
So maybe the telegraph confused LFR with BM a possibility and that’s why they reported him seeing vehicles towards the scene .
Not at all sure what to think .
@ Pink
do you know which property the in-laws of Eric Devouassoux inhabit, I believe it was reported they lived in Chevaline.
No Sorry MN I don’t.
Rainbow Warrior thirty years on
The combat swimmer DGSE who placed the eXplosive charge that sank the Rainbow Warrior apologized in an interview broadcast thirty years after the fiasco of the Mitterrand presidency.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday by Mediapart news website, Colonel Jean-Luc Kister is explained openly about the details of the operation in which a photographer for Greenpeace, Fernando Pereira, was killed.
On July 10, 1985, French agents run in New Zealand Rainbow Warrior, a trawler converted by the environmental group to disrupt French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“Thirty years after the events, with the passions have subsided, and also the decline I in relation to my professional life, I thought it was an opportunity for me to express my deep both regrets and apologies, “said Jean-Luc Kister, interviewed by the founder of Mediapart, Edwy Plenel.
It was part of the “third team”. Jean Camas, he was responsible for laying the explosives to sink the ship Captain Gerard Royal, brother of the Minister of Ecology Segolene Royal, was to collect his two colleagues Zodiac . Jean-Luc Kister address, moved, apologized to the family of Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace members who were on board and the “people of New Zealand.”
“I am an innocent death on his conscience, and it weighs.” “We’re not cold-blooded killers, my conscience dictated to me to apologize and explain,” says one who was an agent Unity Action Service frogmen of the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE).
“High treason”
It considers that the “response” which were loaded twelve officers involved in the operation sponsored by the Defense Minister Charles Hernu was “disproportionate” and said that the other scenarios – such as damage to the propeller shaft ship to prevent it from sailing – were rejected by the political power.
“There was a desire at a high level to say,” No, no, it has to completely ceases, we need a more drastic measure. ” We are told: “No, we must shed the”. Then it’s easy to sink a ship, you must make a hole in it. And then there are risks “associated with the use of explosives. For the executive director of Greenpeace France, Jean-François Julliard, these “late apology” remember that “Fernando Pereira was an innocent sacrificed in the name of an absurd reason of state” and that “the attack was a crime, not an accident “.
They “demonstrate that violent or repressive response of facing civil society States no use,” he added in a reaction sent to AFP, urging the government to “stop increasing penalties or amplify surveillance of activists. ”
In the interview, the former agent accused of “high treason” political authorities who made his name fuiter (with a spelling error, instead of Kyster Kister) after the fact.
“It is not the journalists that I want is political power. If we had been in the United States, other heads would have fallen, “he says. Two days after the tragedy, two officers involved in the operation, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, who posed for a couple of Swiss tourists – Sophie and Alain Turenge – were arrested and unmasked.
Hernu Minister should resign two months later. Since then, Paris has officially apologized, paid compensation and atomic tests stopped in 1996.
Edwy Plenel, who had revealed in Le Monde the involvement of combat swimmers responsible for depositing explosives, feels like an “old sheriff” by conducting this interview. “He is on the side of state secrecy, we the right to know. And thirty years later, that he found for his honor? We, “he told AFP.
For him, there is only a “small element of mystery”. The knowledge level of François Mitterrand, who was aware of the operation Admiral Pierre Lacoste according to the boss at the time of the DGSE “A how did he know that the operation was going to be so violent? ”
http://www.ledauphine.com/france-monde/2015/09/06/trente-ans-apres-l-agent-de-la-dgse-qui-a-coule-le-rainbow-warrior-s-excuse
So it would seem the FRENCH state is not above having people bumped off.
There is an absolute wealth of information in that piece Pink.
Why were the BMW doors locked and seven-year-old Zainab outside the car? Why did Al-Hilli keep leaving the campsite alone? Did the killer spare the children? Peter Allen reports from Lake Annecy on the horrific murders and the conspiracy theories surrounding them
Glass from a shattered car tail-light today marks the isolated stretch of Alpine woodland where four people were murdered in cold blood.
A few wilting bunches of flowers have also been tossed on to the otherwise neglected crime scene, with only the engine noise from of an occasional police patrol car disturbing the mountain stillness. It is certainly hard for anyone — least of all the officers driving past — to imagine the massacre which unfolded on the outskirts of the village of Chevaline, in eastern France, as recently as last Wednesday.
On a hot late summer’s afternoon, when the sun was still shimmering across the nearby Lake Annecy, a single 7.65mm firearm was used to end the lives of British aerospace engineer Saad Al-Hilli, 50, his wife Ikbal, 47, her mother Suhaila Al-Allaf, 74, and Sylvain Mollier, a 45-year-old French cyclist.
All were assassinated in a manner as methodical as it was brutal — two bullets ended up in every victim’s head, while Mollier was hit five times.
Two little girls– the Al-Hillis’ now orphaned daughters Zainab and Zeena — escaped, but not without seven-year-old Zainab being beaten around the head so badly she ended up with a fractured skull plus a bullet in the shoulder.
The cold facts of a meticulous ballistics report make chilling reading. Detectives now know for certain that shots were fired through the closed windows of the BMW saloon in which Al Hilli was found slumped over the steering wheel with his wife and mother-in-law in the passenger seat behind him.
Zeena, the younger daughter, lay unscathed underneath the women’s legs, while Zainab and Mollier were cut down on the pine and gravel-strewn ground outside.
Use of a single weapon — possibly the kind of Czech-made Skorpion vz.61 sub-machine gun used by Russians during the Cold War — suggests the work of a highly trained, professional killer.
What remains an absolute mystery though is why he, and in all likelihood a team working with him, targeted an apparently ordinary family from Claygate, Surrey, who were enjoying a caravan holiday. Police in the Haute Savoie, a French département best known for its ski resorts and mineral water, are none the wiser.
After more than five days on the case, Lt Col Bertrand François, of the local gendarmerie, admitted to the Evening Standard that there had been no vital early arrests, with the search instead “stretching far and wide — to Italy and Switzerland”.
Foreign killers are invariably hired by those who do not want the gunmen to have any traceable link with their victims, with Lt Col François saying the Chevaline massacre had all the hallmarks of a slaying carried out by the Italian or Russian mafia.
Another investigating source said there was “a clear element of vengeance about it”, adding: “There seemed to be no intention of killing the children but everybody else was cut down with the utmost cruelty.” Yes, Zainab was badly hurt, but claims that an otherwise highly efficient gunman “failed” to kill her are “farcical”, said the source.
The consensus is that this was no spur-of-the-moment attack — the kind which might have resulted if the Al-Hillis had disturbed a gang involved in a secret drug deal, for example. A botched attempted robbery of the car also looks unlikely — there was no sign of anybody inside the BMW resisting the criminals.
The man who called the emergency services following the massacre yesterday described its aftermath as being “like a movie — but without the remote control to change the channel”.
The French hiker, a 41-year-old who asked to be identified as Philippe D, is the first witness to have spoken publicly about the attack. Philippe and two women friends were driving towards the scene on their way to start an overnight trek into the mountains. As they approached Chevaline at around 4.10pm, a “terrified cyclist” came hurtling towards them.
He was the British RAF veteran who had already reached the scene but been unable to call for help. “This man was in a panic and coming down the road,” said Philippe. “He explained to me in bad French that there was a drama a little higher up. He was trying to call an ambulance. I did not know if he didn’t have a mobile phone or if his phone network was not connecting at this point.”
Philippe, an experienced walker who lives locally, then ran up to the car park, where the bodies of the Al-Hilli family were all lying dead inside their BMW car. “I understood what was happening straight away, I approached the car. I did not touch anything, but I could see there was nothing more to be done. There was no sign of life.”
Zainab was motionless on the ground “I leaned over the little girl,” Philippe told Le Parisien newspaper. “She did not reply to our calls. I clapped my hands, but she was not reacting. I even said a few words in English, as I saw the car had British licence plates, but nothing happened. As far as I was concerned she was dead.” A few seconds later, Philippe went back downhill to call the emergency services. His was the first registered call to police.
“If we had been there a few minutes earlier it could have been us who were dead, rather than the French cyclist,” said Philippe. “We still wonder why he was there on that day.”
Philippe said he was still finding it “hard to get over” the horror of the scene and thought about it constantly. “There wasn’t a sound — it was like in a movie, one of those TV series where everything begins with a murder,” he said. “We did not know whether we were alone or not, or whether we were in danger or not — whether the people who had done this were still there or not. We thought we were taking risks. The arrival of the emergency services reassured us.”
Philippe and his two friends were immediately taken to a local police station where their testimony was recorded at the same time as the British cyclist.
As he went up the forest road before the drama, Philippe said he had “heard nothing and come across not a single person, no car, no bike”. This supports the theory that the gunman, or gunmen, were already in place before the shootings, or else had arrived by an isolated mountain path. Philippe said they would have been “able to escape by a winding track called Le Moulin” (the mill) which leads directly on to the main road.
On Sunday, police took the four witnesses back to the forest to work out the positions they had found the body in, and to establish a chronology of events. Intriguingly, one of the last people to see the family alive said they had arrived at the isolated car park at least an hour before they were killed.
Laurent Fillion-Robin, a 38-year-old builder, also claimed there was no sign of any vehicle following the family. He was working on a house near Chevaline when he saw the maroon BMW drive past between 2.30pm and 3pm.
He told police he had seen a green 4×4 and a motorbike heading in the direction of the crime scene beforehand. Fillion-Robin’s testament points towards an agreed rendezvous between Al-Hilli and his eventual killers — a possibility which may be backed up by the records of two mobile phones found in the BMW.
Neighbours at the Europa caravan park in nearby Saint-Jorioz, where the family stayed, also said Mr Al-Hilli left the site alone up to five times each day.
If W.B.M. saw a very slow riding motorcyclist going down the combe as W.B.M. was going up, it is a little surprizing that Phillipe D. did not see that motorcyclist.
However Phillipe D. claims it was about 4.10 when he bumped into W.B.M.
It all seems rather choreographed to me.
As if after the slaughter somebody has fitted the actors nicely into a short time-frame?
It’s what makes it so suspicious for sure it as if they changed the narrative some things can be put down journalists making mistakes but when you have the people in charge of the investigation telling them things which are not true it’s hard to tell whats what .
From the get go it was weird personally I don’t have a problem with the police holding back, their job is to catch the culprit not keep me happy I just do not understand all this morphing of what they did say .
MN I don’t know how early you came upon the story but at the beginning PD didnt exist they said WBM made the call everyone’s jaw dropped when they revealed the PD story.
Pink
Interestingly (as our jaws dropped when the story of PD) is the fact that WBM’s own story (as reported by the newspapers, that is) was likely “kept under wraps” by the French investigation team.
The simple story (as first told) would not necessarily “spook” anyone.
However, it would allow possible contradictions to surface.
Fact. The Al Hilli family and Mollier drove/rode up the Combe D’Ire.
Fact. They were discovered by Brett Martin
Fact. The emergency call was placed by a French hiker.
That would appear to be a very good starting point for an investigation.
And it is a pretty concise “chain of events”.
Did this happen ? Did this not happen ?
Then “flesh out” the events to include any other witnesses or reports.
And then test them.
Are there any inconsistencies which appear ? When did they come to light ?
If WBM’s statement (and timing) is key, then crucial would be what he saw and what he din’t be see crucial ? Pretty much “everything” must fit around that ?
The case must rely (heavily) on this missing “X5”.
Did it climb the Comb D’Ire completely ? Did it turn around and depart along the route in which it came ? Could it have driven across country and escape via that route ?
An important point to consider would be “did it drop the killer off.. and then….” And then what ? Escape ? Escape… without the killer onboard ?
It would be (of course) a great help to discover IF “Mr Lyon” was the biker sighted by ONF2 and WBM. (and/or by ONF1, ONF2, WBM).
I imagine the police would have a pretty good idea about that “factoid” by now (and if there was OR was not a “second biker” in the immediate area).
Maybe Eric is closer than we think to finding the answer ?
Maybe he is not ?
We’ll wait and see.
James the car they were looking looked for was a Pajero that quietly vanished.
James as a matter of interest why do you think they told journalists that BM had overtaken SM ?
opps sorry wrong way around SM had overtaken BM, its early I have just woken up brain not engaged yet 🙂
Pink, I thought WBM had said he was never overtaken by Sylvain Mollier,
perhaps I’ve misunderstood.
I find it difficult to accept that William BRETT MARTin spotted Sylvain Mollier in Chevaline.
To me the obvious route for a time contrained Sylvain MOLlier to take, would be the direct route, the least long route.
Let’s say he handed the infant over to the care of his common-law-wife, CLaire Schutz, somewhere in Ugine ( i have no idea if this is actually true)
then S.M. rides along the cycle track from Ugine to Doussard, he turns left at the earliest oppotunity along Route du Couardet, passing Bateaux Passon, then forks left along Route des Cotes, then again forks left onto Rote d’Arnand, then he passes “the Flat Iron Building”,
where he may or may not have interacted with the family al-Hilli, Route du Moulin, fork left up Route Forestiere Domaniale d la Combe d’IRE, Route Domaniale de la Grand Combe Dite Chaplain -Le Martinet.
S.M. would not be actually going through Doussard or Chevaline but he would be passing The Flat Iron Building.
Until Route du Moulin merges with Chemin Rural dit de la Grande Combe to become Route Forestiere Domaniale d la Combe d’IRE,
it should have not been possible for William Brett Martin ( who apparently came from his house in Lathuile) to clap eyes on Sylvain Mollier?
Unless W.B.M. needed to have eyes on S.M. as did LYONMAN.
MN read @at all
Pink
5 Sep, 2015 – 9:45 pm
The first reports said overtaken it changed .
Have we been told where LYONMAN undertook his parapente on 05/09/2012
One of the reasons I am asking is:
if LYONMAN was engaging in his pastime of parapente and landing on the field adjacent to
Route de la Plaine, Doussard,
the two obvious routes that LYONMAN could
have taken to le Martinet,
would have been via Route du Pont Monnet through the center of Doussard, then Chevaline to Le Martinet or
along Route de la Plaine to Marceau Dessous, then Marceau Dessus,
Chevaline, Chemin Rural dit de la Grande Combe to Le Martinet.
Which route did William Brett Martin claim he had cycled?
It should be of interest to us that the family al-Hilli, went out of their way from
Saint Jorioz to go up the combe of IRE via The Flat Iron Building.
Out of all the actors, only Sylvain Mollier would have naturally gone this way.
Co-Incidence probably not.
Pink
The “overtake” puts SM and WBM “at the same point” somewhere from Chevaline to where ever the “overtake” may have happened (which it probably never did).
The point is to say WBM was near SM
SM seen by ONF2
WBM (and ONF2) never saw each other.
And Mr Lyon links ONF2 and WBM together.
Like a pearl on a string, the biker moves up then down then up then down.
So “clear” those three…and anything else reported would be “odd”.
Forget “who”, just think “someone”.
1500 from the hairpins to the bottom.
1515 from the bottom to the car park (and 1535/1540/1545).
…and all that with a motorcycle going up and down.
A killer has to be in the middle of that lot.
He has to arrive. Commit the crime. And leave.
I think the killer was already there.
And I think he “walked out”.
I guess, the family al-Hilli were hanging about near the Flat Iron Building waiting for Sylvain Mollier to go past, perhaps they spoke to him, perhaps they just had to see him go past.
They left him just enough time to do the climb up to Le Martinet.
Then they went up the combe, for the exchange.
Why did they not just do the exchange in the waste ground opposite The Flat Iron Building?
Answer, there was a third party.
If there was a third party, coming to the party,
one of the party was a fixer/introducer.
Perhaps the fixer/introducer was William Brett Martin?
The exchange was unlikely to have been between William BRett Martin and a member of the al-Hilli family,
as this could have been more easily achieved in South East England, where they both had homes.
@ James, 7 Sep, 2015 – 2:20 pm
Judging from the article quoted by Punk above
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9530821/France-shooting-two-shots-to-the-head-the-killers-were-ruthless.html
saying that the gendarmes searched a 4-km-radius around the scene of the crime for discarded clothing or tyre tracks, they obviously share the belief that the killer left on foot.
If he left on foot, then he must also have arrived that way. That should probably make him a local – but then the pool of locals with his shooting skills is tiny. If a man like that lived in one of the nearby villages, tongues would be wagging, as they evidently did in the case of Menegaldo. To my mind, travelling on foot without being local to the area suggests a vagrant. All those vacation homes in the area mean that there must be rich pickings for burglars outside the holiday season, which might have been what drew him to the area at that particular time. A burglary might also have been how he acquired the gun: remember that dude in Switzerland whom they kept locked up for a month on suspicion of having supplied the gun? One full month is a long time, unless they actually managed to trace the gun to that particular dude. (Which would also explain why the police have never publicly appealed for gun collectors, shooting enthusiasts, gunsmiths and so forth to look out for a P06 that had gone missing after 5 September 2012. This would have been a very obvious and potentially fruitful line of inquiry.) In my opinion, the perpetrator being a vagrant could explain quite a few things: as a vagrant, he doesn’t have a wife or other people close to him who would have noticed suspicious changes in his behaviour, he doesn’t own a mobile phone that could be tracked, and he could hail from pretty much anywhere in Europe. If I may hazard a wild guess, I would fancy a former Serbian paramilitary for this crime, as such a person would have the right mix of shooting skills, callousness and violent hatred of muslims.
Ooops, I meant to write Pink, not Punk. Sorry.
Peter
I would like to pick your brains again, tangentally relating to the Tumba thefts, regarding who was the ‘head of the household’ from a financial perspective after the death of Suhaila’s husband.
I guess Swedish law is similar to English or German in this regard however the family concerned may have followed their own customs.
So the father unfortunately dies, his estate is distributed according to the terms of his will. . .
Suhaila then finds herself living in her flat with her mentally ill son who, however much she loves him, has a history of highly controlling and violent behaviour.
Who is the head of the household? Who controls the finances? Is Haydar deemed ‘capable’?
Her other son ‘married’ out of the faith as it were, would that rule him out?
Would another (male) member of the family believe that it was both his responsibility and right to control any significant financial assets?
You have in previous posts, alluded to the strong influence of the extended family network. What would it take for them to intervene?
I wondered whether she (and/or her husband) had acted as couriers to move ‘family’ money to offshore tax havens. She did seem to travel abroad quite frequently.
Peter what about this guy ?
Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_Dupont_de_Ligonn%C3%A8s
If Sylvain Mollier was already pumped full of lead before the al-Hilli family showed, the killer wouldn’t have to be a Muslim hater, would he?
Mr. Brun,
Mr. Mollier,
Mr. Menegaldo,
Mrs. Communal-Tournier,
Mr.William Brett Martin,
Mr. no name LYONMAN,
Mr.Devouassoux,
Mr.Phillipe D.
Mr. Brun
All these actors and more all lived locally.
Surely the killer didn’t have to come from The Balkans