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Melrose, what about the female cyclist interviewed and her rat tat tat ?
If none heard anything, then a silencer was used ?
@ M., 29 Jun, 2015 – 3:20 pm
15 minutes of fame – or the sort of thing that you would say if you had reason to fear that other witnesses might come forward to report having seen somebody with a strong physical resemblance to yourself on a motorcycle strongly resembling yours really close to the scene of the crime.
However, whilst I don’t have any problem imagining some young rapscallion combining a little light illegal off-roading with some pistol practice in the woods, nor with either SM or SAH taking issue to having to share quiet woodland with a noisy trial bike, I struggle with the idea that an adolescent could have been able to keep his mouth shut over something like this for so long.
Re Tampa burglary. It was said at the time that Sapo investigated Iqbal’s apartment in Tumba shortly after the murders. They would have removed her computer and documents of potential relevance to the case, and probably still hold them. If this computer had a tracking device, they would know. I have no information about the subsequent break-in, but it was most likely an opportunistic crime, the perpetrators knowing that the flat was unoccupied.
@ Sparkplug
If Säpo held Suhaila’s computer and relevant documents, Maillaud would know about it. In fact, I would turn your argument around 180° degrees: whoever burgled her flat must have been seriously quick about it to have accomplished the theft before Säpo arrived and seized her possessions. To my mind, that swiftness also points to someone within her family / circle of close acquaintances, somebody who knew that she was dead almost immediately, before Maillaud had the chance to compose an International Letter of Request and have it translated.
For anyone interested you can read about CM’s bravery at age 21 if you scroll down this link
http://www.summitpost.org/l-affaire-freney/827900
to the
The Aiguille du Midi cable car accident
@M.
29 Jun, 2015 – 9:34 am
I am fairly sure it was Iqbal that was last hence EM got in a bit of a muddle at the press conference about how she had died I don’t think he had received full information about her by the time he had to face the press.
Sparkplug
A straightforward reading of TP is that a computer was stolen from the apartment.
However if Sapo held the computer then it must have ‘disappeared’ from their custody.
Quotes from TP (emphasis mine) p253-254 :-
“A French police source told me a large cache of significant items have been taken, including documents that might have assisted their inquiries. Papers related to her bank accounts and the al-Hilli family went missing. A computer also apparently disappeared. Ahmad al-Saffar, Suhaila’s brother-in-law, has been questioned about the burgalry, prosecutor Eric Maillaud told me.”
And directly quoting Eric Maillaud (emphasis mine) on p255 :-
“These are strange things, notably that her home was ransacked and robbed. A computer disappeared”
This direct quote could, at a stretch, be read both ways. Whether that could be said of the original French quote is another matter.
@ Peter
Apart from Michael Norton, who suspects a cover up, we are all agreed the Lyon motorcyclist is the person riding on the Combe d’Ire road at about 3pm before he was stopped by the two forest rangers and agreed to turn back.
But when you say that “risible” that he should be able to recall when he passed the Martinet on that day, or whether he encountered a cyclist or two on that stretch of road, then you are starting to sound like the man’s lawyer!
Of course in normal circumstances we cannot recall in detail a routine journey we made two years ago. But if something exceptional happens on that day, details are etched in the memory. (That’s why people can remember where they were, and what they were doing on the day Princess Diana died, for example.)
According to the press, the Lyon motorcyclist “didn’t make the connection” when the E-Fit and public appeal were launched in October 2013. That’s incredible enough, but even more incredible is the proposition that, from 5th September 2012 onwards, he failed to make the connection between the killings and his presence in the same place and at the same time. Of course he was aware, and would therefore have had a clear recollection of his movements and any people he may have seen.
That’s why, in announcing that their investigation had concluded that he was not connected with the murder, the investigators let it be known that they would be questioning him further after allowing him time to recover his memory. (I am not sure if this further round of questioning has taken place yet.)
Although the investigators have described the man as “honourable”, I wonder if this should really be taken at face value? Is it too fanciful to detect a note of irony in that word? After all, failure to come forward as a person of interest in connection with a heinous crime is hardly the hallmark of an honourable, public spirited person, with nothing to hide.
The other curious thing is that his identity has remained a secret. I am not sure if this is because no one has been enterprising enough to find out, or because of genuine legal restrictions on what can be made public, or because he is protected from exposure by influential friends. If it is the last of these, that could explain the long delay before his was formally questioned in February. You put the delay down to police slowness and incompetence, but I am more inclined to see other factors at play.
If there is an honorable motorcyclist from Lyon, and if the police did not find him from the E-FIT-SKETCH likeness of Eric Devoassoux, it is because they knew who he was, almost from day two.
Untill Menegaldo turned up, the motorcyclist was numero uno on the list for slaughterer.
So who on earth could this eXtra-ordinaryly honourable man be?
It is like a mystery.
There is an eXplanation which comes quickly into my mind,
he works for the FRENCH STATE on special assignments.
Hence, as Mr.Juicy says
COVER UP
by FRENCH STATE
@ Peter, GIP
Does Parry give any information about the timing of the robbery? Before or after Sapo had checked the apartment? If before, who would have known what items were missing? How open and complete was the information exchange between the intelligence agencies and the French police?
@ Mr Juicy, 29 Jun, 2015 – 5:29 pm
The other curious thing is that his identity has remained a secret. I am not sure if this is because no one has been enterprising enough to find out, or because of genuine legal restrictions on what can be made public, or because he is protected from exposure by influential friends.
I don’t know. All I know, having done a little original research of my own, is that, at the time, there was a member of the management staff at the former Spanghero meat processing plant in Lyon who could have passed for Eric Devouassoux’ (or the E-fit’s) twin brother, and who attended (although not participated in) a number of paragliding events.
The case of the missing motive.
After first reading Tom Parry’s excellent book I posted that some ‘scrappy editing’ made it seem to me as though last-minute changes had been made. I wondered out loud whether some things had been censored. The following is my reasoning about what seems to be a ‘void’ in chapter 21.
Starting with the statement in the first paragraphon page 280 :-
“So three conceivable motives, all involving the Al-Hilli family; one potential hitman, a well-trained gunman knew the Annecy area well.”
Then I flick back to check the three motives but can only distinguish two.
Implicitly, the first motive centres on Zaid, starting on page 274 with the final line on that page :-
“French police continue to consider Zaid a key …”
Explicitly, the second motive centres on Iqbal. On page 278 the final paragraph on the page starts as follows :-
“The second potential motive for me centres on Iqbal. ….”
And the third motive that involves the Al-Hilli family centres on whom?
It seems to me that paragraphs on page 279 relating to Iqbal have been bulked up a bit to hide something that has been removed. Perhaps more obviously, the two middle paragraphs on page 274 seem to have been hacked about by a dopey intern.
My guess is that the following was appended to the second paragraph on page 274 :-
“It is, though, currently impossible to gauge whether the stolen documents and computer at Suhaila’s flat have any relevance”
It seems to me that the single sentence above has replaced a larger and more speculative treatment of those items, their relevance and who may have stolen them.
This is based on my ‘feel’ for Tom Parry’s writing style. The rest of the book is coherent. This feels ‘altered’. And not by him.
Peter, I saw the implication on Twitter, not sure. I had my own idea, initials EM !
TP writes it has been agreed his indentity will not be revealed, that is a correct move, why should an innocent man be hounded by the Press ?
Mr Juicy, the original appeal in France focused more on the helmet, Vinneman stating his face was that of an everyman.
He says he never owned a helmet like that, playing with the information we are given, whether we would have acted differently or played the same card, he KNOWS he was not involved, so why get involved.
So very FRENCH.
So is the motorcyclist, who came down from above Le Martinet, passing William Brett Martin the very same Honourable Motorcyclist from Lyon
or another?
Michael, please direct your question here:
http://www.gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr/
I have absolutely no idea.
Them Frencies get up to some weird shit.
More than 1,000 runners fall ill after competing in FRENCH mud race where animal faeces had become mixed with the dirt
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143271/More-1-000-runners-fall-ill-competing-French-mud-race-animal-faeces-mixed-dirt.html#ixzz3eU29HAKY
Thank you, everyone. What a busy day.
That looks very much like Sylvain Pech himself driving the hearse van with the Pech name on the side. Were any bodies remaining in the al-Hilli vehicle when it was removed? Does anyone know which body was removed last?
Is M. Pech selected for all body removals from murders in Ugine and region? He must be a very busy man, if that is the case, dashing from fire to fire and murder scene to murder scene. He would hardly need any routine deaths to keep his business going.
I believe that one of the Pech companies handled Sylvain Mollier’s funeral arrangements. The writing on the gate is similar to the writing on the van. Please feel free to disprove this. Did the Pech family and the Molliers have any issues with each other? It would be very hard in such a small community to bar a family from a funeral, then have to see them every day on the street.
Moving on, the mountaineer from Lyon who scavenges Mont Blanc for treasure was in the news in September 2012 announcing that he was selling his collection of Air India crash trinkets and memorabilia. I do not knoe if the skulls, hair and teeth he claims to have found on the mountain were part of the sale. In October 2014, he was in the news again, announcing his discovery of jewelry from the crash site. The jewelry appeared as if it had been set out for someone to find, he said. The exact date of this discovery is unknown. This did not include uncut gems, to my knowledge. He was not planning to sell these items, or so he said. It must have been very disappointing to him that the 20-something mountaineer found the major cache of gems.
Treasure hunters regularly seek relics at the Mont Blanc crash site. Tour guides take them expressly for this purpose. Picturesque as it is, this region of the French Alps attracts those with greed and euro signs in their eyes, as much as tourists seeking respite and adventure in beautiful scenery. But we already knew that.
Whatever people like CM must think of the scavenger types we can only imagine. There are two clear schools of thought: those who want to take from the mountain, and those who see the crash sites as graves that should not be disturbed.
On other matters, how good is EM’s team at with the ever-changing social media landscape of teenagers? Not very, I suspect. Instant messages and photos that disappear, switching back and forth between the latest flavor of the month site for all this — it’s too late now to go back and find everything if it hasn’t been captured by now. This is the virtual land of braggarts and bravado. Someone might have said something.
As to arsonists, there are more than one, IMO. Fires have been set almost simultaneously in different places. Teamwork, copycats, or not? Is this done while other crimes are underway? If so, it suggests organized crime involvement.
Has a profile of the person suspected of committing the massacre at Chevaline ever been released to the public? The FBI is known for its criminal profiling, and we know they were in the area in September 2012 surveilling the jewl-laden Mastros. Other countries turn to the FBI for this expertise, so why not France? It’s almost as if they don’t want to know.
I’ve always found it fascinating that the Al Hilli threads on this blog have been peopled almost entirely by different contributors from the other threads. The people – or at least their ‘handles’ – seem to have changed considerably over time. The Al Hilli threads have gone on for so long, one of the posters has even passed away.
I find this another fascinating phenomenon of the cyberworld. I drop in from time-to-time from the other threads and from the overworld.
Do we know yet whodunnit? There’s been pretty much silence in the MSM in recent years. No news, I suppose. Have the children said anything about what they saw? We simply do not know. Anyway, this blog must be one of the few sites still actively looking at this subject. Good on you all!
Hello, Suhayl, and welcome back. I’m her with the same old name. Why do we keep coming here? There is no answer.
Still can’t spell. I’m here.
From “Lyon” not “living in Lyon now”.
Clearly M.MotoLyon(from there but local really) does not have TV or has friends that watch TV ?
It has to be “curious” (more than) that this chap had to be “found” by police..and did not come forward of his own regard.
Long time secret reader here, but haven’t followed for a while. Which poster passed away?? must have missed it.
Hi Eleni the only one I saw mentioned was Anders a force to be reckoned with in the early days .
@Q So many rabbit holes poor EM .
The young lad who fell to his death was Matthieu Lambert
http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2015/04/23/c-etait-sa-grande-fierte-de-travailler-aux-grands-montets
@ Reader
I wouldn’t get too fixated on the CCTV thing. Someone may wish to correct me, but I don’t think the CCTV images of the Lyon motorcyclist are likely to have been taken close to Le Martinet, given that it is such a remote area. They may well be some distance from the crime scene, perhaps on one of the approach routes, in which case there would be no reason why the other motorcyclist (if he exists) would have passed that CCTV camera on the same route.
Any apparent confusion is due to the difficulty of reconciling the account of Brett Martin (who saw a motorcyclist riding slowly down the hill, AFTER the murders must have taken place) with that of the Lyon motorcyclist (who said he saw no one and is presumed to have left the scene shortly BEFORE the murders).
This can be explained in the following ways. Either Martin is lying; or the Lyon motorcyclist is lying; or there are two motorcyclists: the Lyon one (innocent) and the one Martin saw (the killer).
Anyway, I think your analysis reaches the most probable conclusion, on the basis on what we know: the motorcyclist Brett Martin saw was most likely not the man from Lyon and was most likely the killer
http://www.france24.com/en/20150630-wikileaks-says-nsa-spied-top-french-companies
I wonder if the AMERICAN government know what happened
in the Slaughter of the Horses?
@ Reader & Mr. Juicy,
if there were indeed more than one motorcyclist, I am not surprized Eric Maillaud
wasconfounded, as have we been troubled.
So, if we are to take it at “face value” (pun)
that the extremley honourable motorcyclist from Lyon, was on the scene above Le Martinet, moments before the Slaughter of the Horses event
and if we allow ourselves to think he was the motorcyclist, spoken to by the forest workers, who directed back down the combe & if we also alow ourselves to agree that he was not wearing a side opening helmet, the conclusion we could draw from this balony
is that a second motorcyclist had a side opening helmet and someone spoke to this person and gave the information to the police artist from which the sketch was made up.
Doesn’t work for me.
He assures not remembering a thing, but considering the chronology of events and the physical setting, he certainly crossed some of the protagonists of the case.
The police wanted to give time prior to this new hearing, which could prove crucial.
Although he was exonerated, this man who came from Lyon by motorbike to practice paragliding in the hills of Chevaline, has certainly crossed the path of the main protagonists of the drama in leaving, probably shortly before the carnage.
http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2015/03/06/tuerie-de-chevaline-le-motard-apercu-sur-les-lieux-ne-serait-pas-implique
I know the FRENCH Authorites, have moved on a bit, since their” first interview, with the motorcyclist from Lyon
but I detect a note of UNBELEIF
on the part of the authorities.