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8,070 thoughts on “Not Forgetting the al-Hillis continued”

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  • Reply ↓
    Peter

    @ M., 12 Jun, 2015 – 2:42 pm

    Peter, an al-Saffar working at the bank ?
    I must confess that I was tempted casually to dismiss your question by simply stating that life is not like that, things are never that easy. But then I checked … and found a Mr Farid Saffar amongst the directors of Crédit Agricole Geneva …
    http://www.easymonitoring.ch/handelsregister/credit-agricole-suisse-sa-472017
    The very bank where Kadhim AH had his account, the bank that SAH intended to visit. Mr Saffar works in Investment Banking rather than Private Banking, but, still, it is rather a coincidence.

    Whether this Mr Saffar is a relative of “our” al-Saffars remains to be seen. If anybody wants to have a go at this task, please do so, as I loathe genealogy 😉

  • Reply ↓
    Q

    @M.: Both families would have some motivation for an honor killing, wouldn’t they?

    In the Shafia case, the father was not a religious man, according to new articles. He didn’t read the Koran. Money seemed to be his thing. Even so, he used “honor” as the motivation to murder three of his daughters and his first wife. But clan relationships are complicated:

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/for-the-shafia-familys-imam-anguish-over-what-might-have-been/article1360179/

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/shafias-treatment-of-women-very-non-islamic-imam-says/article543458/

    How does someone who wasn’t religious turn into a “religious tyrant”?

    http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/mohammed-shafia-became-a-jailhouse-religious-tyrant-after-killing-three-daughters-and-wife-psychologist

  • Reply ↓
    Q

    @M.: Do you know if Iqbal may have been married prior to marrying Jim Thompson? Someone mentioned the period after she completed her dentistry studies, but before she went to marry Jim Thompson in the U.S.

    The Shafia case involved the husband bumping off his first wife, and bringing her into Canada as a domestic on a work visa. I’m not sure what would have happened to their immigration status if he had been truthful about his multiple marriages to the immigration officials. He chose to live in Quebec, where the legal system is different from the rest of Canada. Yes, he would have found an ex-pat community there, but perhaps his choice was related to legalities as well. Mr. Shafia had never divorced his first wife. I don’t know how connected the Shafias were in their community, but the murders led to a fatwa:

    http://globalnews.ca/news/207605/imams-issue-fatwa-against-honour-killings-in-wake-of-shafia-murder-trial-3/

    Some news articles stated that Saad wasn’t particularly religious. Neither were the Shafias.

  • Reply ↓
    Q

    Another thing about the Shafias and the al-Hillis. The surviving children are with relatives. The patriarch of the Shafia family provided no money for the support of his own children to the relative who had been taking care of them. The relative was also looking after the Shafia property holdings.

    Have the al-Hilli relatives been granted citizenship or landed immigrant status? What is the status of the girls’ inheritance and the entire estate that was the source of conflict between Saad and Zaid?

  • Reply ↓
    Peter

    @ Q, 12 Jun, 2015 – 7:31 pm

    Have the al-Hilli relatives been granted citizenship or landed immigrant status?
    Iqbal’s sister and brother have been granted permanent residency in the UK in order to care for the children. This arrangement is good for the children, no doubt (although it is unclear whether the brother Ahmed Mahmood brought his own child over from Sweden as well – somehow, I doubt that), but also good for them. Owing to secrecy and security requirements, I don’t think that either of them will be expected or required to seek work anytime soon. A cynic might suggest that this was probably why the brother decided to tag along, too.

    What is the status of the girls’ inheritance and the entire estate that was the source of conflict between Saad and Zaid?
    According to ZAH as quoted by Parry, it is still “going through the legal process”.

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    @ Peter

    The gentleman you mention actually has a background in senior client advisory/ Private banking, not corporate Investment banking. BUT in my view the chances of this Al Saffar being of relevance to this case are infinitesimally small.

    Al-Saffar is a fairly common name in the Shia diapora, particularly in Germany, the UK, Sweden and the North America. (I am pretty sure that the name is associated with Shia families. Note the name of the Shia leader in Saudi Arabia, Hasan al-Saffar. ) The al-Saffars therefore pop up all over the place, often in professions like medicine and finance.

    I don’t think it would worth researching the genealogy of this al-Saffar. But you may be interested to know that he was brought up and educated in Germany (North Rhine Westphalia) and is a native German speaker.

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    I note that Tom Parry’s interview with Zaid took place very recently – April 2015. Does anyone know when his interview with Eric Maillaud took place? Was there one interview or more than one? Thanks.

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    @ Bacchus

    The links you provide seem to be to a website providing information about death notices that have appeared in French newspapers and other publications. Not all deaths will be recorded in this way. The name of one deceased person, Yvette Menegaldo, appears three times presumably because her death was announced in three local editions of “Sud-Ouest”. Was that the point of your question or have I missed something?

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    @ James

    You asked: How the hell could a gunman… ….pick FOUR so “perfect” victims in “one sitting” !

    This is indeed a good question. Possible answers:

    1. The four victims were linked (but no evidence of this);

    2. To eliminate witnesses (although WBM and MC (L) were spared, perhaps because he ran out of ammunition);

    3. The killer had two different motives:

    a. Mollier was killed because he was the premeditated target, for reasons that still remain to be fully explained.

    b. The Al-Hillis were shot in retaliation for perceived aggression when the injured SAH reversed his car in the direction of the killer (the flight AND fight reflex). The killer’s extreme xenophobic feelings and racial hatred may well have been triggered by this. I am also thinking that the killer was somewhat “désequilibré” in the sense that he was liable to be gripped by blind, irrational rage if provoked.

    Scenario (3b) is the one I favour to explain the “executions” of the Al Hilli’s. It is reflected in the reconstruction I suggested in an earlier post (9 Jun, 2015 – 6:07 am).

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    @ Q

    My understanding is that Iqbals sister, Fadwa, is a pharmacist who is/was a PhD student at the university of Reading. One presumes that the subject of her PhD is pharmacy related.

  • Reply ↓
    michael norton

    So, why would the FRENCH
    wish to minutely intrude into evry aspect of the family al-Hilli,
    yet shine only the glimmist candle into the back-story of Sylvain Mollier.

    I can think of reasons.

    A reason could be they really know why the family al-Hilli were in that part of France
    but for the perceived security of the FRENCH state they will not say what they know, so only a pretence of an investigation is allowed.

    A reason could be they really know what the back-story is of Sylvain Mollier,
    he was engaged in duties of a secret nature for the FRENCH state
    and this knowledge must not be made public,
    so only a pretence of an investigation is allowed.

  • Reply ↓
    Peter

    @ Mr Juicy, 13 Jun, 2015 – 2:54 am

    I rather suspect that you are confusing Cologny (Canton of Geneva, CH) with Cologne (NRW, GER). Moreover, this Mr Saffar is a Bahai, which probably means that his roots lie in Iran rather than Iraq.

    Be that as it may, it is exceedingly unlikely that my hypothetical al-Saffar relative would work at exactly the same bank that SAH intended to visit. This guy roughly fit the profile, that is all.

  • Reply ↓
    M.

    Peter, as Tom Parry relates by tradition, Zainab took his name for her middle name.

    Do you recall the photograph of the graves in Brookwood Cemetery, the reference to ‘d/o’ ‘daughter of’, I do not recall the initials of Ikbal.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/09/14/chevaline–victimes-suhaila-al-allaf-battue-fils-schizophrenie-suede-trouble-obsessionnel_n_1882966.html

    En 2004, il profère des menaces de mort envers son père, Abdul-Amir Al-Saffar, aujourd’hui décédé. “Personne ne peut rien faire avec moi, je veux te tuer”, lui aurait-il dit, selon le témoignage de ce dernier.

  • Reply ↓
    Peter

    @ M.

    Thanks for that. So it is Fadwa (bint / daughter of) Abdul-Ameer. But where does the Dhahir come from? Was Abdul-Ameer in turn the son of Dhahir? Or is Dhahir the place where Abdul-Ameer hailed from? I presume the latter, because there are quite a few Abdul-Ameer Dhahir around, including a member of the Iraqi parliament.

  • Reply ↓
    M.

    Peter, I cannot claim to understand the naming process, did Ikbal takes Saad’s name when they ‘married’ ?

    If she wanted to be anonymous, Ikbal/Iqbal Saad al-Hilli/Hilli is a long way from Ikbal Abdul-Ameer al-Saffar. I am not sure I am being serious.

    You wrote above about Ahmed Mahmood coming over from Sweden, maybe he came over from Iraq ?

    Tom Parry tells the story of Saad, in November 2010 taking Fadwa to the airport for her to return to Iraq after a visit. I recall reading in a Press article, had it not been for the murders Fadwa would have returned to Iraq having completed her University course.

    Of course, to do the PhD in Reading University she would have lived in the area, maybe Ahmed Mahmood was already in the UK ? Saad apparently was not too kind about “that brother-in-law”.

  • Reply ↓
    M.

    Heck Michael, The Daily Mail is writing for its American audience, they may have heard of Geneva, altho’ I bet y’all they’d not be able to point it out on a map ! Is it near England ?

    Haute Savoie – pff! ort savwa

    It does say Tour de France route.

    Have you ever been to FRANCE ?

  • Reply ↓
    Peter

    @ M.

    Fadwa must have lived in the UK whilst doing her doctorate, at least for most of the time (Parry also says so). A subject like pharmacology involves a lot of lab work, which she would have had to conduct locally. Given that AFAIK she didn’t coauthor any papers whilst doing her PhD, the degree must have been a fairly half-hearted effort on her part. That suggests that she would have struggled to obtain a teaching or research job in the UK afterwards, which in turn means that, upon completion of her degree, she would have to have returned to Iraq – or emulated her sister and married a UK citizen.

    Given that she would not have been permitted to work in the UK whilst doing her degree, I wonder how her studies were financed. The absence of any published research other than her thesis does not make her sound like a candidate for a full scholarship. Perhaps her mum dipped into her presumptive offshore account 😉

    I cannot find the relevant passage, but I seem to remember reading that Ahmed Mahmood had a child with a Swedish woman. Of course that doesn’t mean that he was still living in Sweden at the time, or indeed ever lived there.

  • Reply ↓
    Mr Juicy

    @ Peter

    The Swiss Credit Agricole Mr Saffar speaks Persian as well as native German so you may be right about his family roots in Iran. In that case, given his Iranian genealogy, he would not be related to “our” al-Saffar family, unless you think they too have Iranian ancestry?

    The reason I mentioned his upbringing and education in Germany is that he studied in Paderborn, which is in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and received a scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Bonn. But he has subsequently spent a number of years in Switzerland, joining Credit Agricole in 2012.

  • Reply ↓
    michael norton

    This morning our reporter met with Colleagues of Sylvain Mollier at Cezus, the company where he worked, his colleagues were in shock, stunned by the incredible tragedy that struck one of their own. Father of three – the last was in June – the unfortunate 45 year old cyclist
    “a man without history” , as was described in Europe 1 Michel Chevallier, Deputy Mayor of Ugine.

    So, a question could be, how can a man who worked for two decades in a nuclear plant, as a metalurgist, married and divorced, two children by his wife, now living with his much younger common-law-wife and new baby,

    be described as “a man without history”?

    You might think it means,
    a man with a history the FRENCH state would prefer you not to know?

  • Reply ↓
    michael norton

    Sylvain Mollier, la mort au tournant

    http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/Societe/Sylvain-Mollier-la-mort-au-tournant-161047

    So, why would the FRENCH
    wish to minutely intrude into every aspect of the family al-Hilli,
    yet shine only the glimmist candle into the back-story of Sylvain Mollier?

    A reason could be they really know what the back-story is of Sylvain Mollier,
    he was engaged in duties of a secret nature for the FRENCH state
    and this knowledge must not be made public,
    so only a pretence of an investigation is allowed.

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