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8,046 thoughts on “Not Forgetting the al-Hillis continued

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  • michael norton

    Now, even if Sylvain slept most nights in his home in Ugine, it probably means they also used accomodation above the shop in Grignon.
    If you co-owned a business, that you imagined you would one day be the sole owner and if your financial futre was with this business, you would most likely be spending a LOT OF TIME
    in that business in Grignon.
    It would make sense, even if they were not normally sleeping on that premise, for Sylvain to spend time in that apartment or in the nearby park with his very young son, being very close to mum.
    If Sylvain wishes to have a break from baby sitting and go for a walk on his Jack Jones or bike ride on his own, he would have to do it with the agreement of Claire.
    She might have the baby in its perambulator in the shop with her, while the Common-Law-Husband took himself off for a bit of a break.
    So, it is highly likely that on the day he was slaughtered Sylvain Mollier took off from the Pharmacie Schutz-Morange.

  • michael norton

    Where was Patrice Menegaldo working, before and
    at the time of the Slaughter of the Horses?
    Was Patrice Menegaldo working for the Sapeurs-Pompiers.
    Did Patrice Menegaldo visit the Sapeurs-Pompiers unit adjacent to the Pharmacie Schutz-Morange,
    in Grignon?

  • Peter

    I have just read Tom Parry’s book in a single sitting. It was pretty good actually, providing a nuanced perspective on the various protagonists as well as containing more than a few nuggets of fresh information.

    I was particularly pleased that he flagged up various oddities about Iqbal’s background. A few teasers: Iqbal may have actually been “romantically linked” to her former husband Jim Thompson, probably neither her own family nor Saad were aware of her close relationship with Thompson, her marriage to Saad was an arranged one and initially not all that happy, she secretly kept in touch with Thompson via e-mail for many years (probably unbeknownst to Saad; this may have been the reason she pretended not to want an e-mail account) – and after Thompson’s death, somebody deleted all his e-mails and reset the account password. She also had been to the US as early as 1995, for reasons unknown.

    All in all, although it doesn’t bring us any closer to a solution to this riddle, I recommend that book.

  • M.

    Peter, I did the same, some oddities, what a difference in a woman, Saad and Ikbal no doubt an arranged marriage, what happened to the happy, smiling young woman ?

    I thought of you when I read the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS !

    MN, I disagree with Juicy, who along with Peter will agree, Menegaldos name is not mentioned in the book – Tom Parry had the information regarding the name far more recently.

    In the TP book, the person who comes across as bizarre is Zaid, a real hatred towards Maillaud, no back up to his view of the truth.

    As a whole it does not solve anything.

    Juicy is leading you on, MN, some people are strange, suddenly a voice turns up on the scene with all the answers – then I say, damn it man you are the killer !

    MN, the side door does not lead upstairs. the one at the front does, the Pharmacy entrance to the front right side.

    I am sure either Peter or Juicy will explain what happened regarding the Pharmacy ownership, let us just say your assessment needs a tweak, there are other factoids.

  • michael norton

    What I am guessing
    is that Sylvain Mollier had been granted three years paternity leave from Cezus in Ugine, so as Sylvain was going to be a house-husband-baby-siter, it would make loads of sense for him to spend time at or near to the place of work of new mum Claire Schutz.
    Her place of work was her co-owned business, Pharmacie Schutz-Morange, Grignon, adjacent to the Sapeurs-pompiers buildings.
    If Sylvain needed a break from looking after their baby, all he had to do was get Claire to agree, her having the baby with her in the shop, while Sylvain popped out for a bike ride.
    I believe Sylvain left on his bike ride the day of The Slaughter of The Horses from the Pharmacie Schutz-Morange in Grignon,
    they did not have to have been living above that shop for him to have ridden off that day from that shop.

  • Peter

    @ M.

    I thought of you when I read the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS !
    I can assure you that I did not contribute any tidbits, juicy or otherwise, to this work, and that Lars’ own book is bound to be superior in every respect to this oeuvre, if and when he gets down to writing it.

    For the moment, I am still trying to engage in a little light fact-checking. For example, on p. 92, it says: “On her return to Abu Dhabi she got a good job. From January 2001 until at least April 2003, when Saad arrived, she was a General Practitioner in the Faculty of Dentistry at Ajman University of Science and Technology.”

    I cannot find any relevant URLs to support that claim, including the Internet Archive. Did I miss something, or shall I have to take that assertion on trust?

  • M.

    Peter, like you I prefer to check facts.

    MN, the side door leads to a business, I can’t read the panel, the access to the upstairs is from the front door, staircase can be seen. Pharmacy to the other side.

    I understand your point of view, not sure, the couple had been living together for about two years.

  • michael norton

    Yes,
    on the day of the Slaughter of the Horses, Sylvain Mollier handed over their new son to Claire, whilst she waved him off good bye on a bicycle.
    Claire no doubt knows which bike he rode off on.
    She no doubt knows from where he left.
    She might have known where he was going.
    But she did have an expected time for his return and he did not return.
    If she had, had the day off work, I expect they would have preferred to spend the day together as a new family.
    I expect that she was at work, in the Pharmacie Schutz-Morange, in Grignon, when Sylvain handed over the newborn to Claire and it was from the pharmacie that he set off.

    Not from Ugine.

  • michael norton

    This is behind a paywall

    “Attempted murder, a violent kidnapping and home …

    The jurors of the Assize Court of Savoy are appointed to serve in Chambéry courthouse from Monday, June 15 The session will last”
    http://www.ledauphine.com/savoie

    I wonder if this court session on June 15th will include the home-jacking and murder of Nicole Communal-Tournier?

  • Q

    This is interesting. A woman married to a British man for 45 years is facing removal from the UK on the grounds that their joint gross income is not adequate. Full ownership of the couple’s home is an issue, in that it is not being recognized in this case.

    First her visa was rejected on the grounds the marriage “lacked affection”. Now, the appeal tribunal has been rejected for financial reasons. I don’t know how affection is measured by observers from the government. Isn’t government supposed to stay out of the bedrooms of its citizens?

    This could have bearing on the al-Hilli case. What was their joint gross income? Saad was a “consultant”, so his income could have varied greatly from year to year. There is no assured annual income when you are self-employed. Would a record of a recent bank deposit to a Swiss bank suffice to establish means?

    Then there is the matter of the house. Could this be why it seemed to be such a sticky issue between him and Zaid?

    Affection — can a wife who is rarely seen by the postman, neighbors and other moms at school be considered “affectionate”? Really, I’ve never heard of such a thing. How does one measure “affection” when many cultures do not see things the same way? Apparently, having had children together is not proof of “affection”.

    http://globalnews.ca/news/2047376/canadian-woman-whose-45-year-marriage-was-questioned-denied-u-k-visa-again/

  • Q

    This is quite a gem:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bumbling-border-officials-tell-couple-5406911

    “However you have not provided any evidence that your relationship is still subsisting. It is reasonable to expect that in a genuine subsisting, supportive and affectionate relationship, there would be evidence of regular contact, signs of companionship, emotional support, affection, and abiding interest in each other’s welfare and well-being throughout the entire duration of your relationship….I am therefore not satisfied that your relationship is not genuine.”

    What kind of proof do they want? Please not stripping naked on a mountaintop!

  • Mr Juicy

    I have read the book too, not in a single sitting though, as I had to get up to answer the call of nature once or twice. Like Peter, I was favourably impressed. It’s well written and thoroughly researched.

    The best parts are the chapters on Saad and Iqbal, where Parry draws extensively on firsthand accounts of close friends, with many insights into their lives, and it’s notable that both Peter and M. pick out parts of greatest interest these chapters too. I find Parry’s portrait of Saad and Iqbal very convincing – the story how two people, in their different ways, struggled to reconcile their Iraqi roots and heritage with the Western society in which they lived and worked.

    There is no doubt that theirs was an arranged marriage – not a whirlwind romance; and like Peter I was struck by the fact that Iqbal’s relationship with Jimmy Thompson was much more than a marriage of convenience. The implication is that Iqbal married Saad out of a sense of family duty, and never really felt settled or happy in the UK – this explains her reclusiveness and reluctance to integrate. She was so much happier in the US.

    In the middle section, Parry does a good job of summarizing the various theories surrounding the killings. This is in effect a précis of 2+ years of discussion and speculation on the various forums. He is balanced and objective and gives all views a decent airing.

    The most problematic part of the book is the final section, where he bravely attempts to reach a conclusion on key questions such as prime targets and motive. This must have been the most challenging part to write, given that new facts were still emerging, and it would have been difficult to reach a settled view. And the deadline for publication was looming.

    I guess that Parry’s initial working assumption was that the Al Hilli’s were probably the prime targets, but like the rest of us was he unable to find hard evidence of a motive. His efforts to turn the spotlight on Mollier were met with stonewalling from the family and (literally) slammed doors in his face. So he stuck with the assumption that the Al Hilli’s were the target and that Mollier was collateral, although the evidence, such as it is, points to a local killer and local motive. It would have been so much more convenient if Zaid could have been linked to a conspiracy, but the facts did not line up.
    Parry’s big “scoop” is Menegaldo (although the name only emerged later) but he is still unable to link the legionnaire, or similar profile, with a convincing scenario that has SAH as the main target. I am sure the latter chapters will have to be extensively re-written when the second edition comes out.

    All in all, though, Parry skillfully navigates through this impenetrable mystery and I would therefore commend the book to anyone who is already addicted to this case, or would like to become addicted.

  • Mr Juicy

    @ M.

    Re Menegaldo. Of course the Menegaldo name is not mentioned in the book. Parry gets this wrong. He says he has been told that the man’s first name is Francois “but the police will not confirm this”. But the profile, described and discussed in detail by Parry and Maillaud, is obviously that of Menegaldo.

    It seems that Parry picked up “through the French investigative team” the significance of the legionnaire in June 2014 and was able to piece together a detailed picture of the man’s profile.

    The way Parry tells it, one might assume that Maillaud is the source of everything. Perhaps he was, but I think it more likely that Parry already had most of the information from other sources, which he played back to Maillaud in the interview to get it confirmed in an official way, on the record. Maillaud allowed himself to be led to reveal more about his thinking than he should have – hence his efforts to present a more nuanced view after the book came out.

    Debating whether or not Menegaldo is “a suspect” is largely a matter of semantics. He was not a “suspect” when he was alive and was only interviewed about the murders “in a very routine and friendly 45 minute questioning as police followed up every possible lead.” But his suicide and – more to the point – the contents of his suicide note were “suspicious.”

    Parry quotes Maillaud’s reasoning at length, and in quotation marks, which makes me confident that these are his ipsissima verba. In itself, it is not strange that a tough former legionnaire would commit suicide, given that suicide rates amongst middle aged war veterans of all nationalities have always been exceptionally high. But Maillaud’s argues:

    “He was not being considered a suspect, just a witness. I struggle to believe that a tough guy who drank a lot, got in fights in bars, someone who probably spent a few days behind bars in the military jail, cannot then put up with 45 minutes of polite interview with a police officer.”

    The prosecutor confirms (again on the record) that he has asked officers “to pursue this line of enquiry (ie the legionnaire suicidé) as far as possible”.

    So in that sense, Menegaldo is now a suspect. The Parry book makes all this very clear. I’m not sure what there is to disagree about?

  • M.

    Juicy, Tom Parry makes him out to be a suspect and rightly the line of enquiry was persued as far as possible. But it did not lead anywhere.

    No doubt in the updated version he will explain this, he has already had to lose reference to the motocyclist, because he has been found, this man was part of the original strap to sell the book.

    http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/grand-geneve/legionnaire-jamais-suspect/story/21216462

    Revenant sur ces révélations, Eric Maillaud dément et explique: «Lors de cette interview, nous avons évoqué ce légionnaire, qui faisait partie de l’entourage du cycliste et qui s’est suicidé des mois après son audition. Il avait laissé un courrier indiquant qu’il ne supportait pas d’avoir été mis en cause. Cette lettre nous a intrigués. On ne comprenait notamment pas que quelqu’un qui a été entendu 45 minutes se suicide des mois après.»

    Evoquant un «parti pris d’écrivain» ou des «problèmes de traduction», Eric Maillaud poursuit: «Ça n’en a jamais fait un suspect, voire, comme on me l’a fait dire, le suspect numéro 1! Il n’y a rien, hormis cette lettre qui relie cet homme à la tuerie. Il y a eu enquête. Et si on avait acquis la certitude de la culpabilité de cet homme ou de quelqu’un d’autre, tout le monde le saurait et on pourrait mettre un point final à ce dossier. Mais aujourd’hui, nous n’avons rien de neuf, ni sur lui, ni rien d’autre qui permette d’imaginer une solution.»

    MN wants to know if Menegaldo is a real suspect, the answer as of today is NO.

    On Deadzone Max was able to put up a Sound Cloud of a radio interview with the Schutz/Mollier lawyer. Not able to post it here, this is his comment:

    ‘Remember that (in case SM=target) CS was instrumental in the killing at Martinet. It was CS who came back so that SM could go biking. CS ‘triggered’ SM’s trip to Martinet. CS plays a key role, either passively or actively

    Caroline Blanvillain herself spills this very important detail. (Without CS coming home, there would not have been SM at Martinet)’

    I do not agree with all he writes, certainly if Claire had not gone home, he would not have gone cycling and at least that day he would not have died at Le Martinet.

  • M.

    From Amazon:

    When 25 shots from a semi-automatic pistol rang out across the Alpine woodland high above Lake Annecy, there was nobody nearby to raise the alarm.

    In a car, in a lay-by off the single-lane track above, were the bloodied bodies of British computer engineer, Saad al-Hilli, his dentist wife, Iqbal, and her mother, Suhaila. Nearby, on the road, lay the corpse of French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, punctured by seven shots from the same gun.

    Saad’s eldest daughter, Zainab, seven, had been shot, pistol-whipped and left for dead. Cowering underneath her mum Iqbal’s skirt in the back seat of the car was Zainab’s little sister, Zeena – the only one of the six people there left unharmed. Was this a professional assassin’s error, or a humane gesture by someone who knew the girls?

    The motorcycle-riding killer sped through Chevaline to disappear into the main road traffic to dark obscurity. Was he hired by an underworld contact to take out Saad and his family? Was he paid by the Iraqi-born engineer’s jealous brother, Zaid? Was he a Mossad agent under orders to assassinate an Israeli enemy? Or were the al-Hillis just holidaymakers in the wrong place at the wrong time when a French cyclist was murdered?

    Two years on from this most implausible crime, French police remain baffled. Daily Mirror reporter, Tom Parry, covered the case from day one. In The Perfect Murder, Parry explores the background of the case, the lines of inquiry and the many conflicting theories.

  • M.

    The back of the book now reads:

    When 21 shots ….

    Nearby lay the corpse of French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, punctured by five shots from the same gun.

    Was the murderer hired to take out Saad and his family ? Was he a Mossad agent under orders to assassinate an Israeli enemy ? Or were the al-Hillis just holiday makers in the wrong place at the wrong time when Mollier was the real target ?

    Award-winning Daily Mirror reporter, Tom Parry, covered the story from day one. In ‘The Perfect Crime’ Parry returns to the case that has left the French police baffled. He re-examines the evidence, follows all the lines of enquiry and explores many conflicting theories to REACH HIS OWN CHILLING CONCLUSIONS about why the al-Hillis were so brutally murdered and who is responsible.

    I remain cautious about HIS CONCLUSIONS. You pays your money you takes your choice.

  • James

    @Peter

    Can you elaborate on the “arranged marriage of SAH + IAS ?

    @Q

    The comments by the postman have always intrigued me.

  • Peter

    @ James

    It says: “But I have been told by those who knew Baghdad-born Iqbal in the preceding years, however, that this marriage was effectively arranged by their respective Iraqi families in keeping with their longstanding traditions. (…) Several of Saad’s friends have told me he wanted to get married as quickly as possible after his mum died to someone of whom she would have approved, an Iraqi and a Muslim.”

    My own interpretation: A hastily-arranged marriage would also explain why she wed Saad bigamously. Presumably, she had never told her family about her marriage to Jim Thompson. When the two families arranged for her to marry Saad asap, she did not have enough time to divorce Thompson in secret, and she could hardly have revealed her previous marriage at that juncture, since that would have made her “damaged goods” on the Iraqi marriage market.

    Initially, before they had children, her marriage to Saad was not too happy. He had expected her to pull her weight financially by working as a dentist, and he grew frustrated when she did not show any initiative of her own in regard to doing so.

  • Peter

    For the sake of providing a balanced perspective, here is another unrelated little nugget from the book: “The final shot into Sylvain, Monsieur Maillaud has told me, was a textbook execution. ‘The last shot fired at Sylvain Mollier was a bullet between the eyes,’ he said. ‘I have not said this before but it was what we call, in military terms, an execution shot.'”

    My own take: How could Maillaud possibly know that this was the last shot? The sequence in which someone with multiple gunshot wounds was shot is notoriously difficult (or impossible) to establish. Then again, after successfully hitting their victim between the eyes, most killers would call it a day. Thus, it probably really was the final shot.

  • michael norton

    So, from reading the above about what had been said in court, recently,
    by Maitre Caroline Blanvillain,
    there would seem to be a few options, as to where Sylvain Mollier
    departed on his last cycle ride.

    1) Was Sylvain Mollier in his house in Ugine, baby sitting his new born son,
    while his common law wife Claire Schutz was at work in the
    Pharamacie Schutz-Morange in Grignon.
    Then for some reason she vacates her business to drive to Ugine,
    so her common law husband can go out for a jolly on his bike.

    2) Claire is working in her shop, with Sylvain & the infant close-by, she agrees to have the infant in its perambulator in the shop, while Sylvain goes off for a jolly on his bike.

    3) Sylvain is caring for his new born son in his house in Ugine, an urgent message comes for a “meet” at Le Martinet, he rings his common law wife and tells her he most go out on urgent business but on his cycle so as not to arouse any suspicion.
    Reluctantly, Claire agrees because Sylvain has briefed her on how important this business is likely to be.
    Sylvain, then loads his bicycle onto his cycle carrier on his car.
    He then loads his son into the baby seat in his car.
    He then gets his cycling gear ready.
    He may have collected his gun.
    He may have collected cash.

    Then he sets off from Ugine to the Pharmacie Schutz-Morange.
    He arrives and parks his vehicle in one of the spaces alloted to the pharmacie.
    He then unloads his child and hands him over to Claire in the shop.
    Then he changes in to his cycling gear.
    Then he unloads his cycle.
    He hands Claire the keys to his house and the keys of his vehicle.
    Then, with his gun and the cash secreted he is away for his last cycle ride.

  • M.

    Yes, Peter, possibly the final shot to Mollier but in the scheme of things could have been as the gunman moved from side to side of the car, given his position according to Martin, he would have had to step over him or move around him. Maybe he was still conscious and groaned.

    Tom Parrys conclusion, sticking his neck out as he says, the most likely killer was a hitman, hired to kill one or several members of the al-Hilli family, with good knowledge of Chevaline and the mountain range beyond. A local man with a military background…. and a purpose.

    The Legionnaire is described as you say being a drunk and getting into fights, not exactly hired assassin material, although as TP says on page 266, he fits the profile and if it was not him then another with a similar background.

    Interesting is his comment fresh data collated by police on both sides of the Channel that reinforces the idea the killer was someone who knew the area.

    For MN:

    ‘There is less mystery in the life of Sylvain Mollier, which detectives have been able to research far more thorougly. so three conceivable motives, all involving the al-Hilli family; one potential hitman, a well trained gunman knew the Annecy area well.These are my educated guesses; not certainties.

    Haydar Thaher al-Saffar has not been spoken to for the book, nor Fadwa or Ahmed, who have withdrawn all contact with Saads old friends.

    Peter, what do you make of Ahmed Mahmood being Suhailas fourth child, not the husband of Fadwa ? And the cousin the his daughter not Fadwas, I am struggling to follow who is who.

    After reading the book I find it far more likely the al-Hillis were targetted by a hired hand, a hired hand just for Mollier to end up killing all the others seems so much less likely.

  • Peter

    @ M.

    I don’t understand why Ahmed Mahmood is called Ahmed Mahmood rather than Ahmed Mahmood al-Saffar
    https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/Judgments/al-hilli-judgment-04112013.pdf

    There is a suggestion in the book that all was not well in the al-Saffar family. Apparently, Suhaila intended to open a bank account (in Switzerland?) for Zainab and Zeena and transfer a substantial sum into it, “a large chunk of her savings”. Not only was spyware found on her computer, but her flat in Tumba was burgled after her death, papers related to her bank accounts and her computer being stolen. Her brother-in-law Dr Ahmad al-Saffar was questioned by police about the burglary.
    http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahmad_Al-Saffar
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/28/french-alps-shooting-children-returned

  • M.

    AhmEd Mahmood is the man shown to be one of the girls guardians on the Family Court papers, I always assumed he was Fadwas husband but apparently not.

    Haydar Thaher, does not appear to use his al-Saffar surname either, does anyone know if this is common practice ?

  • Good In Parts

    Peter

    You quoted Parry :-

    He had expected her to pull her weight financially by working as a dentist, and he grew frustrated when she did not show any initiative of her own in regard to doing so.

    Well duh! she didn’t expect to actually have to work as a dentist after she married. She expected children.

    Remember our discussion a while back around dinner-party-dentists who are happy to ‘put their children first’?

  • M.

    Good in parts, a full quote:

    Dr Alabdi believes it was only because Saad feeling the strain that Iqbal eventually agreed to start training for her British dentistry examns. She passed the first part of the examination and was studying for the second part when she died. She had been a stay-at-home mum since Zainab was born and might perhaps have been rusty. As ever, Saad did his best to help.

    “She feared driving, she didn’t go shopping, she didn’t take the kids to nursery because she was so terrified someone might speak to her, and she never studied for the dental exams at first,” Dr Alabdi recalled. “It applied loads of pressure on him, so eventually he told her she would have to start studying. That’s why he built the wooden house in the back garden. He bought her equipment to do this. In the last few years of her life she was studying really, really hard.”

    I’ll skip a bit, Jack Saltman had a word with the local dentist, he agreed to mentor, Saad’s wife. this was at Hare Lane Dental Practice in Claygate, a few minutes walk from home.

  • James

    @Peter (et al).

    Cheers for that.

    Re the “final” shot (and how Eric describes it). Taking his view point, it merely serves to point to a “skilled user” of a firearm.
    It doesn’t however point (directly) to Mollier being the target. As in, it could point to the gunman venting anger for what had happened.

    If we take the assumption (widely held) that this was a “hired in gunman”, there are two issues which inevitable spring forth (amongst many).

    In an ambush style “incident” the victim(s) “planned route” has to be known OR they are persuaded to “head that way”.

    A “hired hand” must be aware/familiar with the area chosen (and indeed chosen it) for the “event” and/or have established an escape route.

    Both the journey taken by Al Hilli and by Mollier are both (appear to be) “off the cuff”. Our Eric (and we can always find fault there) cannot come up with any (and the investigation team would have concentrated somewhat on this) reasons for either party to (clandestinely) be there.

    Of course, it can be argued, knowing a murder was to take place ALL aspects of that “alleged” meeting would be “wiped clean” prior to this tragic event.

    With Mollier… lets say he was “playing the field”. Then at least “something” of that would have surfaced (even if the an actual meeting up that afternoon was erased).
    Although I do appreciate a “second undiscovered/unknown” mobile could have been used and then removed (MH370 still has question marks with regard to the Capt’s “possible” affair).

    Murdering a member of the Al Hilli family (in such a far away place) would be (bizarrely) more logical…however “logistically” difficult it maybe.

    But…. less so, if there was “involvement/cooperation” from “inside”, so to speak.

    Taking the stand point “this planned event went massively wrong”, then I always come back to…which “bit” went wrong ? Clearly the “bit” where everyone gets killed.

  • Peter

    @ James
    This one is especially for you: “Before she (Zainab) left (France), one more bedside interview took place. It provided some help, saying that she saw a 4×4 vehicle, but nothing that could categorically pinpoint the killer.” Make of that what you will …

    @ Good in Parts
    I still cannot find any trace of her ever practicing as a dentist, anywhere. Be that as it may, she also could not be bothered to qualify when she was in the USA, not even as a dental hygienist. Rather, she worked as a dental assistant – “She worked part-time so that she and Jim could go and do things more.” Thus, she probably really was what you call a dinner-party-dentist. I only wonder what kind of dinner party she attended for all those years between her graduation in Baghdad 1987 and her turning up in the USA in 1999.

    Her mother moved in equally mysterious ways: After her mother had succeeded in persuading Iqbal to leave the US, the two supposedly met up in France (of all places). What was the mother doing in France, with a sick husband and a mentally-ill son back home in Sweden?

  • M.

    Peter, I am mor eintrigued by :

    In the back seat on the right was Suhaila. Apparently still very active despite her advancing years, she regularly accompanied her daughter on excursions to the Continent and in Britain.

    The actual paragraph you refer to reads (Judy Weatherly speaking)

    He said that she was unhappy, and that her family was putting a lot of pressure on her to get back.
    ” I said, ‘Are you going back to the Emirates?’ because that was where she was living when she came her. She said, ‘I’m going to start out over there’. She said her mother was in France at the time. She was going to find her mother or something, I just didn’t want her to go.

    No suggestion they met up, sorry Peter. My yellow marker was busy !

  • Peter

    @ M
    You don’t take that
    She said her mother was in France at the time. She was going to find her mother or something, (…)
    to imply that mother and daughter met up in France?

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