The previous thread was overloading WordPress due to the number of comments. This thread has been opened to replace it.
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>
@ M You guys are too quick for me! I saw your 11:30am comment after I had posted mine. So he was never a member of the CC D’Ugine, although they knew him well enough to describe him as a loner. But – as far as I can see – not well enough to post a tribute to him on the velo101.com site, which contains 3 pages of comments and discussion about his death from other velo enthusiasts, nationwide. Why doesn’t this surprise me?
MN, I try to follow why you think the crime against the Communal-Tourniers is anything to do with the case.
The face in the Portrait-Robot is found, as James says originally from Lyon, how do you then connect the release of the sketch to the murder/manslaughter of Nicole ?
I can understand such an idea when it happened, since then with the discovery of the Motorcyclist seen by the forestry workers, does it remove any link ?
The gracious host of this thread wrote
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/09/the-al-hilli-conundrum/
“My own security services sources insist that al-Hilli was not a person of current interest to the UK intelligence agencies (…)”
“Current” is the operative word here – it is almost confirmation that he used to be of interest to UK intelligence agencies in the past.
Saad is said to have been kept under surveillance in 2003
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199513/Saad-Al-Hilli-shooting-French-Alps-Extraordinary-life-engineer-victim.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198777/French-Alps-shooting-Police-question-Saad-Al-Hillis-brother-Zaid-inheritance-row.html
The funny thing is, 2003 was not only the year in which Iraq was invaded (the cause to which the foregoing articles attribute the surveillance op), it is also the year in which Saad married Iqbal, on 28 August 2003. She would have arrived in the UK some time beforehand – and most probably stayed with Saad and his brother. Thus, in my opinion, it could well have been her who was kept under surveillance 😉
This also puts a fresh angle on a story that I considered completely bogus at the time
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9638566/Claims-emerge-Alps-murder-victim-may-have-had-access-to-part-of-Saddam-Husseins-fortune.html
Specialist police were last week questioning Geneva-based bankers about the Al-Hilli’s assets, while financial records in countries including the USA have also been requested.
The USA, huh? As far as I know, the al-Hilli family including the father had no known connections to the USA whatsoever, and the father barely spoke English. However, unbeknownst to that journo, the US is where Iqbal had recently come from. Hmm …
Even if I do say so myself, the arrival of Iqbal on the scene in Claygate makes much more sense as a reason for surveillance of the house than the Gulf War, a war in a country that Saad had left when he was a boy, a war the progress of which he could not have made the slightest bit of difference to.
Iqbal being under surveillance and being aware of it would also explain the transition from the sporty, outgoing “Kelly” described here
http://www.coloradonewsday.com/news/regional/67914-was-the-alps-massacre-wife-the-real-target-the-mail-s-uncovered-drastic-new-evidence.html
to the more reclusive character living in Claygate, who didn’t even want to speak to the other parents at her children’s school – quite understandable if one doesn’t know which of them are unofficial informants for the security services. It also fits with the local postman not knowing that she even lived in that house. Postmen are routinely tapped for low-level intelligence on domestic targets, as are neighbours and indeed school teachers. Anybody with a bit of training in espionage tradecraft would know about these patterns.
‘If the ONF2 unit saw the motorcyclist (that’s official information released by Eric) AND saw Mollier (that’s also official information released by Eric)…’
Was the latter in a private Twitter message from Jean-Marc Ducos to Max at Deadzone, which he then shared to the public, with reference to a Citroen Visa Fourgon ?
Have any of the forestry workers officially declared they saw Mollier or Martin or the burgundy BMW ?
Peter, you will be interested to know Tom Parry writes Ikbal did not like the internet she refused to have an e:mail, Dr Zaid Alabdi probably jokingly says maybe she didn’t want to be found.
He also says the Al-Saffars were strict Muslims and he cannot see how they would allow their daughter to work in the UAE and certainly not travel to USA and marry a non-Muslim stranger.
The story goes, Saads mother died April 2003, he took a holiday to Dubai/Abu Dhabi take your pick because he was so upset at her death. There (according to Zaid Abu Dhabi) he met Ikbal, a whirlwind romance.
The (void) marriage taking place on 28th August 2003, allow for Bans/notice of marriage and Ikbal needing to be in the country for at least 7 days before that, end of July 2003 minimum.
Did Zaid Alabdi, who trained with Ikbal in Iraq, know Saad before 2003 ?
Smacks of arranged marriage and the surveillance on Ikbal rather than Saad. I always found the comment strange about him wishing he had had his children earlier, maybe the mother is an insignificance.
@ M.
Thanks for that. I suppose I really have no option but to buy that book, even though I already know that I am going to hate it. For example, I know for a fact that Iqbal used the Internet, because she posted some questions to a discussion board for aspiring dentists, the kind of questions that a first-year dentistry student might ask. I found those questions using her e-mail address (or one of them?) as a search term.
Thus, even though points like this
He also says the Al-Saffars were strict Muslims and he cannot see how they would allow their daughter to work in the UAE and certainly not travel to USA and marry a non-Muslim stranger.
fit my own line of reasoning very, very neatly, I shall always be left wondering how reliable they are.
@MN 9:56 am: Yes, I agree. Many of these characters do seem to have amassed small fortunes in small towns that do not seem to have much going for them, except the nuclear industry and tourism. Tourism in the mountains is seasonal, with down times in the shoulder season during the spring when the snow is melting, and again in the fall before the snow falls. Tourism is also subject to the ups and downs of the economy, and currency fluctuations. People involved in various tourism endeavors may look for steady sources of income to pad the slow times. The international economic meltdown of 2008 is something to consider, as well as France’s current economic difficulties.
So many French people connected to this story have influence on municipal councils and even national politics. With all the past scandals in France involving bribes, influence peddling, etc., it’s tempting to paint at least some of them with this brush. We know the local connection to the Sarkozy corruption scandal.
Income that has not been reported to tax officials would certainly inspire people to keep things hush-hush. Such income may be connected to various criminal enterprises that we’ve discussed here. If there was a single financial connection between all of these people, what would it be? I’ve returned to that angle of late. It is unusual for so many people connected to a mass murder to be in a place of financial abundance.
I continue to consider the significance of the Mollier family silence, and somewhat contradictory willingness to subject themselves to further scrutiny by legal action to silence others. The behavior is bizarre. If you want to be left alone, you ignore what people are saying. You don’t take legal action to stop a photo from being published. That is how old money would act, anyways. So is it more than money that motivates this strange behavior? Maybe.
This is me being lazy – I could try to check myself – but can anyone help me out on the following. Have the French authorities ever confirmed the precise position of SM’s cycle at the crime scene, or provided any information about its condition? I suspect that the answer is “no” but would like to be sure. Thanks.
@Q Where are you looking SYS liked From Russia with love page 8 you film buffs I don’t have the patience 🙂
Now that the Brenner Pass is a riskier route, where do illegal migrants go when they’re heading north for a better life?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/human-traffickers-making-millions-off-poor-refugees-heading-to-eu-a-1004918.html
The Brenner Pass is six hours away from Ventimiglia, Italy. A route through the French Alps and on to Switzerland wouldn’t take any longer. Switzerland’s illegal migrant population is estimated at up to 180,000 in this article from 2010.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ex-illegal-immigrant-shares-her-story/29056572
The role of the hotel and tourism industry in human trafficking is explained briefly here:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2012/April/we-must-act-together-to-fight-exploitation-and-human-trafficking-in-tourism-say-united-nations-and-international-partners.html
More:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/specialflight/photo_gallery_background.php#.VXWxVRtFCpo
The illegal migrants have no access to health care, and must find their own way to treat illnesses and injuries. One can imagine over-the-counter medications without medical care can only go so far.
Many of the local economies in the Haute-Savoie are driven by tourism. This area also has many unexplained single-vehicle “accidents”. Human trafficking is highly profitable and non-taxable.
There is no known connection between any of the players in the mass murders at Chevaline and human trafficking. Surely involvement in such business would be very secretive. Is this why French investigators are so cagey? Release the little fish to get the big fish?
Who knows?
From 2004: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1053654.html
Setting this out as information about Dubai in the early 2000s as context and background information.
From 2015: http://www.thenational.ae/uae/uae-human-trafficking-law-tightened
There were six human trafficking cases in Dubai in 2013. A drop in the bucket.
Did we ever verify Saad al-Hilli’s business/work/holiday interests that took him to Dubai?
@ Q “We know the local connection to the Sarkozy corruption scandal”.
Please tell, I don’t think I know
Yes lots of money in human smuggling
http://www.france24.com/en/20150608-migrant-italy-backlash-grows-europe-mediterranean-sea-drownings
Migrant backlash grows as Italy arrivals top 50,000
Italy will take NO MORE
@ Peter. After the part you mention, CM goes on to quote his intelligence sources as saying that Saad “was not involved in anything clandestine” and says that he has “no reason to disbelieve them”. If we give weight to the first half of this “steer” from his intelligence sources, we should give equal weight to the second. The implication seems to be that, although SAH had an intelligence background, he was not engaged in clandestine activities at the time of his death. Of course, there is no obligation to believe CM’s sources and many would choose not to!
Anyway, according to SAH’s neighbour, quoted in the Daily Mail, the surveillance began in March 2003, at exactly the time of the start of the Iraq War, and well before the arrival of Iqbal, which would probably have happened during the summer of 2003. Thus there seems no basis for connecting the surveillance with Iqbal specifically. The neighbour in the Daily Mail story refers specifically to surveillance of the two brothers.
On the subject of Iqbal’s alleged “reclusive” behaviour, I would think that the rules of espionage tradecraft would require her to try to blend naturally into her local community – not to draw attention to herself by being a recluse (if that is what she was).
Tonight, councilors Seynod are invited to a special council on toxic loans contracted by the municipality. The loan of EUR 7 million (indexed to the Swiss franc), contracted in 2007 has now a debt forcing the town to take out a new loan of 14 million euros to fulfill the repayment interests. Follow place the live session on our site from 18 hours.
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.ledauphine.com/&prev=search
Yes, councils can get into trouble with money, do any councillors ever go to prison?
If you go on Google Earth and look at Cezus, Ugine, it is a right shabby old fashioned place, no guards lurking about on the gate and not very high fences.
Looks like something from just after the war.
What if she was on the run ? I think that is Peters thoughts.
As for the surveillance, if they followed Al-Hilli when he left the house, what did they do about the other Al-Hilli if they were watching both brothers and how would Philip Murphy, some memory to recall this after 9 1/2 years, know. I wonder if he mentioned this odd event to anyone ?
Juicy, Maillaud said the cycle appeared to have been thrown into a corner, thrown aside. Martin said in the road further up the clearing, that is why he thought the cyclist was resting, until he saw the cyclist. Rizet says two spent casings found by the cycle.
Q, the photos were from the Enquiry file, they were very upsetting for the children, Leo spoke about this to the press.
The fault has to start with the CD from this file, sent to Paris for those higher up the chain of command to see.
The Mollier/Schutz family decided to keep their distance from the Press, no photo, Christophe Mollier did speak out about his brother. There is another of the murdered we have not seen, Suhaila, Fadwa has also kept her distance from the Press.
Who supplied the first photos of Saad and Ikbal ? Was it their family ?
@ Mr Juicy
As to the first point that you mention, that Saad was not involved in anything clandestine, that would be an obvious point to make if it had, in fact, been Iqbal who was involved in something clandestine.
Regarding the presumptive date of her arrival in the UK, your guess is as good as mine. I am aware that the Iraq War started in March 2003, but I am also aware that people planning to wed a partner permanently resident in the UK can apply for a six-month-visa to sort out the nuptials beforehand. (BTW: Saad only applied for UK citizenship in 2012. If I were a skeptic, I should say that he only did so in order to smooth Iqbal’s progress into the UK, long before he officially met her for the first time).
Your final point is spot-on, however. Funnily enough, I had already written something to the effect that this meant that she had probably given up her former trade, hung up her Minox, as it were, but I decided against posting it. Anyway, chapeau to you for picking up on this.
If you go on Google Earth and cruise around the CEZUS plant in Ugine, there are notices up about TIMET
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/timet-announces-the-formation-of-timet-savoie-156310895.html
Apparently TITANIUM makers, don’t they make cycle frames out of Titanium?
Denver, August 12 – Titanium Metals Corporation (TIMET) announced that TIMET and Compagnie Europeenne du Zirconium-CEZUS, S.A (CEZUS), a leading French titanium and zirconium producer, have completed the previously announced formation of TIMET Savoie, S.A., a joint company based in France which has acquired the titanium business of CEZUS.
TIMET Savoie is owned 70% by TIMET and 30% by CEZUS. TIMET Savoie will operate within the CEZUS facility in Ugine, France, utilising equipment and personnel dedicated to titanium production which have been transferred from CEZUS. In connection with the transaction, the sales, service and technical support activities of TIMET’s existing French operations will be consolidated with the operations of TIMET Savoie.
TIMET Savoie will benefit from TIMET’s leadership in titanium technology and its extensive international distribution network.
TIMET, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is a world leader in the production and distribution of titanium sponge, ingot, and a broad array of titanium mill products.
Peter, 2002, just a slip of the finger, I am surprised he waited so long, arrived in the UK at about 9 years of age.
Saad went to UAE after his mothers death, April 2003 he married August 2003, that is a whirlwind romance, one so intense she forgot to file papers to divorce her blanc marriage in the States.
She left Jim in 2001, why not do it sooner ?
MN, There are three companies on the site, CEZUS, TIMET and UGITECH (the old steel works)
L’usine d ‘ Ugine, Ugitech, producteur et leader mondial de produits longs en acier inoxydable, fait désormais partie, après Usinor et Arcelor, du groupe allemand Schmolz-Bickenbach et emploie 1800 salariés dont 1200 sur le site d’Ugine. Areva-Cezus, premier producteur mondial de zirconium du groupe Areva emploie 350 salariés. Timet, premier producteur de titane du groupe Titanium Metal Corporation emploie une centaine de salariés.
Ugitech is the old foundry http://www.ugitech.com/ugima3/products/
stainless steel production
Timet Savoie http://www.timet.com/products
titanium
Cezus http://www.areva.com/EN/operations-977/ugine-melting-and-forging.html
zirconium products
Molliers father worked at the old steel works.
@M
“Have any of the forestry workers officially declared they saw Mollier or Martin or the burgundy BMW ?”
Officially… only ONF2 saw SM. That’s all.
@Pater
Mrs Al Hilli is interesting.
Training in the UAE as a dentist …to marring an unknown “red neck” in the United States (then leaving to marry Saad Al Hilli in England).
Note… I never knew you could ever be a “trainee dentist” (in a practice).
You either are….or you’re studying to be (at university hospital).
Just “jumping in” here and there….is very odd.
Now Saad had/has lost his way.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/french-alps-murders-police-moving-5842540
Nonsense piled upon nonsense. And still, after a huge British police effort (apparently) still not a word or opinion after two years nine months.
We can see now where are taxes go (without any obvious result).
@ M Thanks for this. Eric Maillaud’s description of the position of the cycle is not consistent with the statements made by William Brett Martin on camera, first in the interview with Tom Symonds (BBC) and later on the Panorama programme. As Martin was an eye witness, I would attach greater credence to his statements.
The most interesting one is what he says on Panorama:
“As I came round the corner, the first thing I could see was the French cyclist’s bicycle actually lying on its side in the middle of the road, quite a way up”.
Note that in this account, Martin has just rounded the bend, and views the scene from a distance. He sees the bicycle in the MIDDLE of the road. Not on the side of the road, not in a corner, but in the middle of the road.
The relevant parts of the his interview with Symonds have now been cut from the version posted on You Tube, but fortunately a full transcript still exists. The crucial sentence is as follows:
“As I sort of approached the scene, the first thing I saw was a bike on its side and I’d seen the cyclist ahead of me much earlier so I thought he was just having a rest”.
In this statement, Martin also says that the bike is the first thing he sees. Although he does not mention the middle of the road, we can deduce this: since Martin was approaching the scene after rounding the bend in the road, the bicycle must have been in a prominent position in the road for him to see it first.
Note that he does not say that he saw the cyclist resting. He could not have done, because as he rounded the bend, the cyclist would have been out of sight, off the road and near the front of SAH’s car. He merely assumed that the cyclist was resting, based on the sight of the bicycle on its side in the middle of the road.
The scene from Martin’s point of view can best be understood by watching the relevant part of Alexander Cartier’s You Tube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvjqI1M6lvY at 6 minutes. This conveys exactly what would have been visible to Martin as he turned the corner. For him to have seen the bicycle before SAH’s car, it would have had to be in the road, not on the parking area. (On the day Cartier shot this video, a number of cars were parked there, none of which became visible until he was much closer to the lay-by.)
If SM’s bicycle was indeed in the middle of the road, and not thrown into a corner as stated by Maillaud, this has huge significance in enabling us to reconstruct the exact sequence of events that led to the killings.
If, as part of a prearranged rendezvous, SM had already stopped and was talking to SAH before the shooting started, he would have either left the bicycle in a safe place within the parking area, perhaps leaning it against the sign at the upper end of the area, or would have kept it with him. He would surely not have thrown this 5000 euros machine on the ground in the middle of the road. The only circumstances under which he would do this would be if he was taken by surprise and needed to run for his life.
The position of the bicycle therefore suggests the following scenario. As SM reached the road by the far end of Le Martinet, he was confronted by the killer. Seeing the gun, and fearing for his life, he dismounted, abandoned the bike in the middle of the road, and ran into the parking area, towards SAH (whom he almost certainly did to know) who was outside his car with his daughter (this confirmed by the French investigators, based on soil traces on their shoes). In the initial burst of fire, SM was shot in the back (also confirmed by the French) while trying to escape, and SAH and probably his daughter were hit by stray bullets.
Wounded, SM collapsed close to the car, perhaps running into SAH and his daughter (hence the traces of blood on them – officially confirmed). SAH panicked, entered his car and reversed in direction of SM/ the killer – flight and fight – hitting SM and/ or dragging him to the other end of the parking area (the dragging scenario is officially confirmed). The killer, already extremely pumped up, interpreted this as lethal aggression, and reacted by eliminating SAH and family, before finishing off SM.
The position of the bicycle is thus the key which unlocks the mystery. SM was ambushed, almost certainly after having been lured to the killing spot on that day. SAH and his family were very probably innocent victims, but SAH may have sealed his own fate by aggressively reversing the car as he sought to escape.
Of course this hypothesis is dependent on the accuracy of WBM’s recollection about the position of the bicycle. We can debate that. It is also dependent on the inaccuracy of Maillaud’s description of its position. That should be scrutinised with the aim of establishing whether it was a throw away remark in response to a journalist’s question (EM does not always have all the facts at his fingertips); or a mistranslation of what he actually said; or part of the French authorities’ deliberate “information management strategy”.
Apologies for the length of this posting!
@ M. (re Philip Murphy, the neighbour). Yes indeed! The whole surveillance thing rests on the statement of this man, almost a decade after the event. The idea that Special Branch would have knocked on his door, requesting permission to park in his drive, with the implied objective of carrying out a surveillance operation, doesn’t ring true to me. Did they make him sign the Official Secrets Act? How could they be sure that he would not “spill the beans” to SAH, thereby defeating the objective of the surveillance? Anyway, they don’t need to park in someone’s drive – they just post as BT engineers laying cable and park in the street. Or perhaps they really were BT engineers… who could tell the difference? And so on. His story has more holes in than a Stilton cheese – and smells as bad!
@ Peter
Re the date of Iqbal’s arrival in the UK, I was simply basing myself on the timetable suggested by M. – which is SAH would have left for Dubai after his mother’s death in April, and met his future wife there. Allowing for a decent period of mourning, this would imply that he arrived in Dubai not before May, and that after a whirlwind romance she followed her back to the UK, arriving in May 2003 at the earliest.
Alternatively you can decide that the whole idea of the whirlwind romance in Dubai in the late spring / early summer 2003 is false, and that Iqbal turned up on Saad’s doorstep on or before March 2003, in the last months of his mother’s life (not a good time for a whirlwind romance, but never mind). This scenario would be inconsistent with what most proponents of the Iqbal intelligence link are apparently assuming, wouldn’t it?
I guess you mean that Saad applied for UK citizenship in 2002? I agree that this seems odd since he had been resident in the UK since early childhood, if I recall correctly. I would have thought that the convenience of having a UK passport for travel within Europe and elsewhere would have made him do this sooner. On the other hand, I am not sure if he would have to renounce Iraqi citizenship on becoming a UK citizen: perhaps yes, perhaps not. Given his concerns to recover family property in Iraq, this could also be a factor in the timing of his decision to become a UK citizen.
The idea that the CM’s intelligence friends were trying to imply to him that it was not Saad, but rather his wife, who was involved in clandestine activities, may be attributing to them a degree of subtlety that even they would find flattering! I would argue that by going on holiday with her and driving her around France, Saad was also fully involved (if indeed there were any clandestine activities, an assumption which remains unproven).
@ Tim Veaton
I agree. This is appallingly bad journalism and makes no sense at all!
The sentence reads:
And if Saad al-Hilli had been the target he did not die at a pre-arranged meeting as he had parked above Lake Annecy “by chance” after taking the wrong route.
The sentence confuses two hypotheses that can explain why SAH and his family were at that unlikely place at that time:
1. That this was a pre-arranged meeting. In that case
a. SAH was lured to that place, and was the target (or one of the targets).
2. That he happened to be there by chance. In that case
a. He was an innocent victim; or
b. He was followed there, by persons who intended to kill him.
The Tom Parry article sort of quotes Maillaud theorizing that “SAH … had parked above Lake Annecy ‘by chance’ after taking the wrong route”. I find this very sloppy writing, because this is in indirect speech (no quotation marks) and it is clear whether this is actually EM’s view or merely Parry’s interpretation of what he thinks EM was trying to say. Less than useless. If this is what the rest of the book is like, maybe I will resist the temptation to buy, or at least wait until well-thumbed copies start appearing for a quid on Amazon!
That said, however, what EM could have meant is that SAH unwisely took this narrow, potholed route – mistakenly believing that it would be pleasant and scenic (thus “the wrong route”) and parked only when he saw the layby and a sign and had reached the point where cars could not go further (thus “by chance” not by prearrangement or design). SAH was not “lost”, in the sense that he had taken the wrong turning, or lost his way, but simply had made the wrong choice of route for that segment of the afternoon.
This seems to me to be the best way to explain how, if he was an innocent collateral victim, SAH happened to turn up in that unlikely spot at that time.
Sorry, I meant to write Tim Veater.
@ Mr. Juicy 6.06am
” (whom he almost certainly did to know)”
sorry, not clear
@ Michael Norton. Thanks. “whom he almost certainly did not know.”