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There does seem a number of contributors, recently come on here, who seem intent on taking the searchlight away from FRANCE.
Now why would that be?
George
I agree it is unlikely, but wiki contributors and editors tend to be pedantic er, people. Sources are usually there, even if wrong.
Thanks for the link by the way. Interestingly under the education section there is this:-
“graduated from Kingston University in the late 1980’s at BEng Level”
So doing the math he should have graduated nominally in 84 (possibly 83 if he was moved up a year, which happened in those days).
But let’s say that although he was smart, his education was disrupted by the move from Bhagdad to London so maybe 85.
Now, I would not even describe 85 as the late 1980’s.
He could easily have done a MSc ‘conversion course’ and/or a another degree and still graduate in the late 1980’s.
@ Michael Norton
“A number of recent contributors seem intent on taking the searchlight away from France. Why?”
You are not the only one to have noticed. Better not to speculate, though, as speculation is discouraged here, particularly when it points in an unfashionable direction or gets inconveniently close to what could be the truth. On the other hand, factoid mining is harmless fun and keeps everyone amused.
@ Michael Norton
Not all of the posters. I think you are convinced the answer to this mystery is in in France, and so do I.
More madness
this time on the road between Lyon and Chambery
http://www.ledauphine.com/isere-nord/2015/06/26/saint-quentin-fallavier-une-explosion-chez-air-products
10 H 57: according to a source close to the investigation, a car burst into the company shortly before 10:00 performing rodeo in the court to strike gas chocolates on the site.
Also according to the information of the Dauphine Libere, a man was beheaded inside the court, he is not an employee of the company. His head was allegedly found several dozen meters from his body. Moreover, a man was injured, also an outsider in society. It is unknown at this time if it is the author.
10 H 35: Vienna prosecutor went to the scene. The antiterrorism Paris is entered.
10 H 29: according to our initial information gathered on the spot, it evokes an attack. Several victims were to deplore that a person who was beheaded at the entrance of the company. According to the Dauphiné Libéré, a man entered the business and opened several gas bombones claiming to be Daesh Islamist flags in hand.
The area was cordoned off by police.
10 H 07: a loud explosion followed by a fire took place Friday at 9:50 in Air Products Avenue Arrivaux located in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier. An important feature of police fire department is currently on site. Several injuries were reported.
So in the last week”in that part of FRANCE” you had somebody tortured by stanley knife, atteneded by local fire persons, the ambulance stopped maked persons shoot at the fire fighters and stretchered victim, then fire bomb the ambulance.
Now a person has been decapitated and an attempt to set the building on fire.
Yet I expect it will have all started in ENGLAND?
Vigipirate
being upgraded.
Now Nuclear Plants are to get eXtra protection.
Incendary devices let off in Air Products events,
Incendary device was let off in the ambulance at Lake Annecy
probably not lone wolf
This must tell us something?
“la personne interpellée et par ailleurs blessé a été évacuée vers 12 heures 50 de Saint-Quentin-Fallavier dans une ambulance des sapeurs-pompiers escortée par une dizaine de véhicules de gendarmerie pour êttre placé en garde à vue.”
Le Dauphine Libre
Bloody Hell the firefighters are no longer taking prisoners.
A suspect known to security services was arrested.
Bernard Cazeneuve named Yessim Salim as the arrested perpetrator.
He did not have a criminal record, but was known to the security forces since 2006.
Another was killed by a firefighter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Quentin-Fallavier_attack
So lesson learned from the attack on firefighters on the banks of Lake Annecy a couple of days ago.
Pink
About those apocryphal key rings, I reckon SAH would have accepted anything if it was free! I have no idea if such a thing exists though.
However, if he was tracked, then I prefer the more parsimonious explanation given by Parry on page 267 of his book:-
“Saad had tracker software on his computer, enabling those to whom he gave access to follow his movements.”
Note that Parry wrote ‘computer’ but, from memory, I think it was his smartphone and the software was Google Latitude.
Let’s re-name this discussion not-forgetting-Michael-Norton!
Christian Marechal was a friend of the uncle of Claire Schutz
PIERRE MORANGE
of Pharmacie Schutz-Morange fame.
Let’s also remember that a letter was left at the death scene of Christian Marechal claiming to be from Al Qaeda
I think (from memory) the police chief was stabbed 18 times, in his own home,
no suspects after eight years?
@ Mr Juicy
I fully agree. Either that or not-forgetting-crime-in-france.
Crime elewhere (the UK, the USA) is of no interest. Does it even exist?
Tom Parry’s book, the Menegaldo sister interview. What comes next? Why does the Mollier family remain so silent? The time would be right for them to say “we knew him and he has nothing to do with the loss of our dear one”. But they don’t.
Yes M.Norton this site has change. Now is very pretty !
Not Forgetting the al-Hillis
1 Oct, 2012 Bluebird was certainly found the TRUTH.
series of Hollywood-style assassinations
“Bluebird
1 Oct, 2012 – 12:54 am
James he is probably sleeping.
Search google for MEK+mossad+scientist
You will find something yourself!”
Good Work.
@ Mr Juicy, 26 Jun, 2015 – 4:32 am
Well, go ahead and speculate. The trouble is that, for speculation of this kind to be meaningful, capable for being tested for goodness of fit with the known facts, capable of being appraised and refined by others, you need building blocks out of which to construct it.
In that respect, there is a massive imbalance between the UK side and the French side. There is a great deal of information on the AHs, but almost none on the Molliers, Schutzes, Menegaldos etc. Much of the sparse information on the latter is indirect and negative, concerned with what these people don’t do, i.e., give interviews or publish press releases.
Thus, unless you count pointing out that there is an awful lot of crime in France and that the perpetrator of the Martinet murders therefore is likely to have been a Frenchman a compelling argument, you are reduced to baseless speculation. Sylvain Mollier must have been this, that, and the other: a philanderer, a sponger, a spy, a closet gay, a dealer in performance-enhacing drugs for endurance athletes like himself et cetera. Menegaldo must have been batshit crazy and affected by violent mood swings, an old-school disciplinarian motivated by an powerful soldierly sense of honour, Claire’s secret lover, her father’s best mate, a rabid xenophobe, a patsy who was suicided et cetera. I have read a lot of must-have-beens about these people, some more intuitively plausible than others, but none based even on the flimsiest of evidence. Even if such speculation were right on the mark, in the absence of factoids, it would be impossible to advance reasoned argument in its support.
The spotlight shone on the French side in this thread has been an extremely dim one thus far: there is a lot of crime in France. The Molliers and Schutzes are behaving oddly in not sharing the British propensity for baring their souls to tabloid journalists. Oh, and the French nuclear industry is not doing too well. Right. I should very much like to see a brighter light than that illuminate the French side, but that is going to require some purposive, first-hand investigation.
Peter, thankyou, I have typed up a paragraph or two and deleted several times, the Molliers/Schutz chose not to engage with the Press immediately. If they were to condemn Menegaldo publically they risk a court case, if they defend him they would be accused of knowing who did it, they cannot win.
It is the silence which appears to annoy Michael and many others it is wrong to compare the attitude of the French to the British, for all we know Gary Aked was paid for his contribution to The Mirror articles (they do pay for stories), he appears to regret some of his assertions about Mossad for example.
I looked back at this blog from the beginning, the majority followed the line of al-Hilli being the target for various reasons and finger pointing in all directions.
I have reason to believe Menegaldo worked at a swimming pool where he took care of children, I do not know if that was teaching them to swim or as a Lifeguard, he had never harmed any.
Besides which according to his sister, he was with his nephew (reason to believe he was young) likely of school age, on that Wednesday afternoon as every Wednesday afternoon there was no school, that could well be why she was able to go to work (tourism/events), because her young son was being cared for by her brother.
Tom Parry was obviously unaware of this factlet, leading to all sorts of factoids making the headlines, I admit I referred to Wiki (originally described by Norman Mailer in 1974 which describes a questionable or spurious (unverified, false, or fabricated) statement presented as a fact, but without supporting evidence).
Terrible events in France and Tunisia today, RIP to the victims and sincere condolences to their families.
Must go, my boss at DGSI needs me.
@ Peter
Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that there is necessarily a correlation between validity of a particular hypothesis and the volume of information that has been generated surrounding that hypothesis. But this assumption is demonstrably false, for the following reason.
As you rightly point out, there is a great deal of information about the AHs, some of it discovered through the heroic efforts of contributors to this and similar sites, most of it disclosed to the media by friends and neighbours. These “building blocks” have been used to construct numerous theories to explain why the AHs were targeted, but logic tells us that, at the very most, only one of these theories can be true. The other theories must therefore be false, even though they are “supported” by “building blocks” of numerous facts (or factoids).
Thus we can see that there is no necessary correlation between the volume of information surrounding an hypothesis, and the truth of that hypothesis.
Yet you imply that because information on the French side is relatively sparse (your word, not mine), any hypothesis which suggests that Mollier was the main target is unworthy of serious consideration. In fact you call it “baseless speculation.” But as noted above, there is no correlation between the validity of a particular hypothesis and the amount of information that has so far come to light that supports that hypothesis.
I am not sure if you are a scientist by training, but if you were, you would know that many advances in human knowledge are the result of hypotheses which are proposed, often without strong factual underpinning initially, but are tested through observation and experimentation, and ultimately proved to be correct.
The investigation into these killings has been plagued, not by a paucity of information, but an overload of information, most of it irrelevant, which has served to confuse and distract. Reaching an impasse, the typical reaction is not to try to work out which irrelevant information can be discarded (the correct approach), but to continue digging. Inevitably, the law of diminishing returns is now increasingly applicable.
In constructing a hypothesis, the starting point is to look at the known facts and probabilities. The weapon used points to a local killer. Most murders are local affairs. It’s improbable that Saad’s mortal enemies (if he had any) would have hired a local killer to murder him in a remote location which he was visiting by chance. As far as we know, Saad had no connection with anyone in the vicinity of Chevaline, whereas there are connections between Menegaldo, the Molliers and the Schutzes. We’ve discussed at length the possible significance of Menegaldo’s suicide and his note, which – it seems – strongly suggests that he was placed under “garde à vue” and interrogated as a suspect (something which has been mysteriously denied by Maillaud).
With respect, I think it is unrealistic to ask bloggers and armchair detectives to undertake “purposeful, first-hand investigation” into the French side, given that we are dealing with a close knit community and a society which, rightly, respects personal privacy and upholds the principle of the presumption of innocence. We must therefore wait, for new facts to emerge as a result of fresh revelations, of which Christelle Menegaldo’s France Bleu interview is the latest example. I am quite prepared to believe that the truth may never come out; but on balance I think it probably will.
Of course, it is also possible that new information will come to light that demonstrates that the AHs were the main targets after all. I don’t exclude that, but personally think that such an outcome is much less likely than my preferred hypothesis.
I think, things are changing in FRANCE, the locals have had enough of the Islamists.
Note: from slaughter of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier
The other perpetrator was killed by a firefighter on the scene!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Quentin-Fallavier_attack
Earlier on this week at Cons-Sainte-Colombe, later on the shore of Lake Annecy, firefighters were attacked by masked gun people and their vehicle exploded.
Vigipirate in “this part of FRANCE”
is upped to the highest level of ALERT.
Wow, just copying the Wiki entry
and they have now removed the bit about a firefighter killing one of the Islamists.
But earlier today I’ve read benard caeznove had thanked the firefighter for winning the battle.
But this refference has been pulled in the last few minutes.
This shows the importance of copying and pasting stuff,
the moment you first see it, not just the URL.
@ M.
If you look through not just the CM blog, but also the others (MZT /DZ) you will see that there is no shortage of speculation about Mollier being the prime target.
Just to take one example at random:
Lynda 11-26-2012 at 14:27:15
QUOTE
If Sylvain Mollier … was having an affair, he would need to lie about timings, could he have told Claire that he was going to do the grand tour, this could explain why she became worried and drove in the general direction of Chevaline around dusk, after calls to his phone were unanswered. This is why she fell upon the blocade at Combe d’Ire, he was going in that direction.
Now, to gain time he would go the tougher but quicker route across the Col de Cherel, he’s met his lover there before, maybe every Wednesday afternoon. The woman is also in a relationship, her partner finds out what is happening and decides to confront Mollier at the spot where he would be expecting his lover.
Mollier cycled up to the wooden bar across the road and got off his bike, his lovers car wasn’t there yet, she’s been late before. Saad approaches Mollier to ask if there is anything worth seeing further along.
The killer can’t afford for Mollier to realise his lover isn’t arriving and risk him getting on his bike to go further up the Col or back down to Chevaline and continue his ‘planned’ route. So, in rage he fires at Mollier from a distance arriving from the trail (EM) and not from the tarmac hairpin bend, screaming abuse at him, so he knows why this is happening, although I suspect the two men knew each other.
….
So, the lover ? This is a woman now in fear of her own life, probably works at Ugitech, Cezus or one of the other companies on the Industrial zone. Likely lives on the Annecy, Doussard side of the Col de Cherel.
….
NB. The Mollier affair had been going on for some time, certainly before Claire was pregnant.
UNQUOTE
I could come up with many other examples and other permutations – it’s all out there on the internet.
Frankly, this speculation by “Lynda” is a lot fruitier and more graphic than the scenarios I have suggested in recent days. Peter was also participating in the discussion I just quoted, but perhaps out of a sense of chivalry, refrained at that time from describing Lynda’s hypothesis as “baseless speculation.”
@ M., 26 Jun, 2015 – 5:21 pm
I have reason to believe Menegaldo worked at a swimming pool where he took care of children, I do not know if that was teaching them to swim or as a Lifeguard, he had never harmed any.
Besides which according to his sister, he was with his nephew (reason to believe he was young) likely of school age, on that Wednesday afternoon as every Wednesday afternoon there was no school, that could well be why she was able to go to work (tourism/events), because her young son was being cared for by her brother.
It sounds as if you are doing some first-hand investigating. Well done!
@ Mr Juicy, 26 Jun, 2015 – 5:44 pm
Since my academic subject is one which was originally conceived of as household management, I am loth to consider myself a scientist. My abiding intellectual passion, however, is philosophy, particularly propositional logic. As you are doubtlessly aware, statements such as “Come here!”, “Ouch!” or “I am cold” cannot be assigned a truth value. I put it to you that statements along the lines of “Sylvain Mollier must have been this, that, and the other” are no different – they cannot be either proved or disproved (by us) and therefore belong to the same class of utterances.
You make a good many valid points in your argument – I particularly like your point regarding information overload often serving to confuse and distract –, but you appear to have missed my key thesis that, even if you were somehow to hit the nail upon the head in hypothesising about these murders, you would never be able to convince others of this circumstance, not even yourself if you took a strictly scientific perspective. After all, in the absence of empirical observations to support your hypothesis, what would you base your credence upon, if not intuition or gut feeling?
Your probabilistic arguments concerning the gun and the difficulty of finding a local killer are well-taken, but could be countered with similar arguments about the unlikeliness of such a killer turning up with three full magazines and just happening to encounter a family as colourful as the AHs.
I wholly concur with your conclusion that we must wait for fresh factoids (I call them thus because they have passed through the vapid minds of journalists, sometimes getting twisted out of all recognition in the process) to emerge. Meanwhile, all that remains to be done is to conduct one’s own research.
Stuff is being taken off the internet.
Suddenly: now there was only one bad man.
Perhaps he will turn out to be a lone wolf!
Attack in Isère: Vigipirate goes on high alert in Rhône-Alpes
One person died and several were injured in a bomb attack this morning in an industrial gases plant in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier. The latest information in our live.
New Board restricted at the Elysee Saturday morning
A new small board chaired by François Hollande will be held Saturday at 11:00 at the Elysée. The Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who cut short his visit to South America, will be present at this second board, which also bring together ministers Laurent Fabius (Foreign Affairs), Christiane Taubira (Justice), Jean-Yves Le Drian (Defence) and Bernard Cazeneuve (Indoor), has said it does.
Four guards at current view, and no proof of the existence of an accomplice at this stage, according to the prosecutor
According to the prosecutor of Paris François Molins, given the records of the two cameras, at 9:28, a van entered the factory in discreetly. The driver rang, skirted the wall. The vehicle was used to get into the business and therefore did not arouse suspicion.
At 9:36 there was an explosion. One minute, we see a man winning a covered shed. The authorities arrived while he was in the second hangar, manipulating carboys. There were no injuries among the 43 people on the site.
Close to the victim was found a knife. The head was found on the fence of the company surrounded by two flags with Arabic inscriptions corresponding to the profession of faith. The victim was 54 years old.
Four guards at current view: the suspect, his wife, his sister, and another individual. Nothing at this stage to confirm the existence of an accomplice.
The suspect had occasionally attracted the attention of RG between 2011 and 2014 for its links with the Lyon Salafist movement.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/06/26/01016-20150626LIVWWW00104-direct-attentat-isere.php
So it is not rue that one of the Islamists was killed by one of the firefighters
you decide?
rue=True
next they will be saying the man cut off his own head.
Hang on a moment, it looks like The PRESIDENT OF FRANCE
and the BBC
think more than one Islamist were involved
At a press conference soon after the incident, Mr Hollande confirmed that two attackers had targeted the chemicals factory at around 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT).
He said a car made it through the factory gates before ploughing into gas canisters, sparking an explosion that injured two people.
“We have no doubt that the attack was to blow up the building. It bears the hallmarks of a terrorist attack,” he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33284937
The security services are going to make the president of France look
silly if they try and change the story after it has been put out by their president and by the minister of the interior?
MN, the man was not killed, an unarmed pompier caught him trying to open acetone canisters, he is in custody, along with his wife, his sister and another person.
You might like to know that 60% of media reporting after an event is wrong, I quote this from a British General who spoke on Sky News today.
Here is the latest from the mouth of the Prosecutor who held a Press conference this evening.
EN DIRECT. Attentat à St-Quentin-Fallavier : le chef d’entreprise décapité était l’employeur du terroriste présumé
Un homme de 54 ans a été décapité dans un attentat commis vendredi matin contre une usine de Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, dans le Nord-Isère, par un ou des assaillants brandissant un drapeau islamiste.
http://www.leprogres.fr/faits-divers/2015/06/26/attentat-de-daesh-a-saint-quentin-fallavier-un-homme-decapite
Arrivés sur le site, les pompiers l’ont ensuite surpris en train d’ouvrir des bouteilles d’acétone et l’ont maîtrisé, a raconté le procureur de Paris.
@Good In Parts
So surely for him to be followed that way would mean he had given the killer access?
Good In Parts
26 Jun, 2015 – 12:46 pm
“Saad had tracker software on his computer, enabling those to whom he gave access to follow his movements.”
Pink
Not necessarily, SAH claimed that his on-line accounts had been hacked. If that included his Google account, it may have been possible to somehow remotely grant this facility.
Obviously another approach would be to take over an account of someone who had already been granted access such as FB.
I am speculating there though.
An objection to this idea is that FB implied that SAH did not have a contract with inclusive data on the continent. However it is possible that the phone could have used wifi if available.
Factoid: Courtney Love is not impressed with violence in France. She is 50 years old, the same age as Saad al-Hilli when he was gunned down at Chevaline.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/25/courtney-love-berates-hollande-over-unsafe-taxi-ride-in-paris
Courtney isn’t one to mince words.
https://twitter.com/Courtney
“François Hollande where are the fucking police??? is it legal for your people to attack visitors? Get your ass to the airport. Wtf???”
courtneylove
“how on earth are these people allowed to do this? the first car was destroyed, all tires slashed and beat with bats, these guys trying to open the doors and the cops are doing nothing?? French Taliban? civil reform needed in France?? I want to go home”