The mainstream media for the most part has moved on. But there are a few more gleanings to be had, of perhaps the most interesting comes from the Daily Mirror, which labels al-Hilli an extremist on the grounds that he was against the war in Iraq, disapproved of the behaviour of Israel and had doubts over 9/11 – which makes a great deal of the population “extremist”. But the Mirror has the only mainstream mention I can find of the possibility that Mossad carried out the killings. Given Mr al-Hilli’s profession, the fact he is a Shia, the fact he had visited Iran, and the fact that Israel heas been assassinating scientists connected to Iran’s nuclear programme, this has to be a possibility. There are of course other possibilities, but to ignore that one is ludicrous.
Which leads me to the argument of Daily Mail crime reporter, Stephen Wright, that the French police should concentrate on the idea that this was a killing by a random Alpine madman or racist bigot. Perfectly possible, of course, and the anti-Muslim killings in Marseille might be as much a precedent as Mossad killings of scientists. But why the lone madman idea should be the preferred investigation, Mr Wright does not explain. What I did find interesting from a man who has visited many crime scenes are his repeated insinuations that the French authorities are not really trying very hard to find who the killers were, for example:
the crime scene would have been sealed off for a minimum of seven to ten days, to allow detailed forensic searches for DNA, fibres, tyre marks and shoe prints to take place.
Nearby bushes and vegetation would have been searched for any discarded food and cigarette butts left by the killer, not to mention the murder weapon.
But from what I saw at the end of last week, no such searches had taken place and potentially vital evidence could have been missed. House to house inquiries in the local area had yet to be completed and police had not made specific public appeals for information about the crime. No reward had been put up for information about the shootings.
Behind the scenes, what other short cuts have been taken? Have police seized data identifying all mobile phones being used in the vicinity of the murders that day?
The idea that the French authorities – who are quite as capable as any other of solving cases – are not really trying very hard is an interesting one.
Which leads me to this part of a remarkable article from the Daily Telegraph, which if true points us back towards a hit squad and discounts the ides that there was only one gun:
Claims that only one gun was used to kill everybody is likely to be disproved by full ballistics test results which are out in October.
While the 25 spent bullet cartridges found at the scene are all of the same kind, they could in fact have come from a number of weapons of the same make.
This throws up the possibility of a well-equipped, highly-trained gang circling the car and then opening fire.
Both children were left alive by the killers, who had clinically pumped bullets into everybody else, including five into Mr Mollier.
Zainab was found staggering around outside the car by Brett Martin, a British former RAF serviceman who cycled by moments after the attack, but he saw nobody except the schoolgirl.
Her sister, Zeena, was found unscathed and hiding in the car eight hours later.
Both sisters are now back in Britain, and are believed to have been reunited at a secret location near London.
There are of course a number of hit squad options, both governmental and private, which might well involve iraqi or Iranian interests – on both of which the mainstream media have been very happy to speculate while almost unanimously ignoring Israel.
But what interests me is why the Daily Telegraph choose, in the face of all the evidence, to minimise the horrific nature of the attack by stating that “Both children were left alive by the killers”? Zainab was not left alive by design, she was shot in the chest and her skull was stove in, which presumably was a pretty serious attempt to kill a seven year-old child. The other girl might very well have succeeded in hiding from the killers under her mother’s skirts, as she hid from the first rescuers, and then for eight hours from the police.
The Telegraph article claims to be informed by sources close to the investigation. So they believe it was a group of people, and feel motivated to absolve those people from child-killing. Now what could the Daily Telegraph be thinking?
All articles on the Al-Hillis have been removed from the Surrey Constabulary website, except this general one
http://www.surrey.police.uk/news/news-stories/full-news-story/article/1298/french-judge-and-prosecutor-visiting-uk
which doesn’t even name them. However, exciting articles such as
Police in Elmbridge donate funds to assist with the building of a community clubhouse in Claygate remain.
OK let me fly a kite:-
The D-notice was leaked by a Manchester journalist. Why not just say journalist or a London journalist even if untrue. Was it suggesting a BBC journalist?
What if the D-Notice leak hadnt mentioned Israel involvement who would we put in the picture for this? Maybe our own intelligence for getting rid of him after he turned.
But maybe Israel is in the D-Notice so the people we are least likely to think of is the CIA. I think our government would be happy for us to think it is Mossad but by stopping the press SPECULATING on the Israeli involvement the press can only print the Mossad angle once they can prove it. If Mossad didnt do it they can hardly be able to prove that they did. Any press investigations look in that direction finding very little until the papers think its a waste of time and money and pull the plug.
More from Mr Stedman:
«Saad n’a jamais évoqué devant moi de dispute familiale», affirme Julian Stedman, qui explique que son client s’était rendu à plusieurs reprises à Bagdad pour régler les avoirs immobiliers que son père possédait dans la capitale irakienne. [Le Temps, Switzerland. Marc Roche,London]
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/2c3c66dc-f9b3-11e1-b29d-24cb7d77d40c|2#.UGfl-K71jKQ
And more from Mr Stedman
…adding that Mr Al-Hilli’s accounts revealed that he had been working hard in the preceding weeks.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/family-took-sudden-holiday-after-fathers-recent-trip-to-baghdad-8114018.html
The same article puts Al-Hilli in Claygate on Friday 24 August.
“James”: “I phoned him but he told me he was at home and had taken two weeks off,” Another contradition of Lorna Davey (who incidentally leaves no trace at 192.com)
@Felix
Good spot on the contradictions between the neighbours’ statements and those of Julian Stedman.
I can add a few details…
Contradictions from Al-Hilli neighbours.
Some say they had been away for at least three weeks [Lorna Davey,school parent, Evening Standard]. Jack Saltman says (Daily Mail) SAH had told how he was grappling with a ‘personal problem’ on August 29, the day the family left for France. Now, wouldn’t CCTV at ports prove this??
Who is telling the truth? My money on Ms Davey.
The Claygate postman says:
PM: Um, I haven’t seen the caravan there for a couple of weeks now
Which would tie in with Ms Davey’s statement rather than JS’s.
Accountant said it was a new part of France for SAH. his client had not been on holiday in this area of France before
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the media say they’d been to the same campsite many times before? At least, that’s what I understood. Can’t find any links to that now so maybe I’m wrong.
When did the accountant learn this plan? Julian Stedman steers clear of stating the date he completed the emergency VAT return immediately prior to departure. Why??
Client confidentiality? I bet he was doing more than just a VAT return though…
Let’s try and put these things before and after Saad’s marriage in 2003:-
-Zaid Alabdi
@ dental school in Baghdad with Iqbal al-Hilli (not Al Saffar?)
http://www.gdc-uk.org/pages/GDCSearchResults.aspx?RegNumber=75636&Surname=&qs=1
Says Zaid Alabdi in Baghdad in 1987
FDS RCPS Glasg 1997
He didnt take his statutory exam until 1999.
Iqbal Al Saffar
In 2002 Iqbal was a dentist in Dubai.
Zaid Alabdi becomes best friends with Saad. Did he already know Saad and introduce them?
I wouldn’t read too much into inconsistencies in their explanations. They belong to a group of people who were persecuted and who has an ingrown skepticism towards authorities, and for whom it has become a lifeform to evade and guarding their every move, – and who can blame them? It’s a skill that most of us have forgotten, but which could become handy one day. Talking to people during the War of the Roses and asking them detailed question as to where they were then, most of them would tell you to bocker off.
Well, you don’t have to go back to The War of the Roses to get this reaction. Try to go down to Anders’ pub, and ask him where he was in, say, 1977, and his reaction would undoubtely be along the lines sketched above – if he suspected you were about to gather material for a dubious chat site
Someone asked “Question is… why Siemens ? Were they selling (and allowed to sell) nuclear reactor “things” to Iran ?
From the BBC article linked above re Iran claiming Siemans put explosive devices into Sieman’s equipment. Note that: “Siemans said it has “no business ties to the Iranian nuclear programme”.
The original Stuxnet virus story was the virus infected general purpose Sieman’s industrial control products, valve controllers etc., nothing specifically nuclear. There was concern the virus might infect similar Sieman’s controllers used worldwide in power plants and factories, which proved unfounded. Later it was revealed the virus was specific to the motor controllers for the Iranian centrifuges.
As to why the postman for SAH said there was little mail delivered to the house, sometimes people use a post office box or have all mail sent to their office, perhaps to avoid theft or just for convenience if they travel, their secretary pays the bills.
I still think that this is an obvious Mossad hit, one in the manner of its former Director Meir Dagan, and by his most capable successor Tamir Pardo.
Pardo has been slow to take up the assassination campaign of Iranian nuclear scientists that Dagan started before he left, but it now seems to be in full swing, as the alleged DN indicates.
Why would editors and journalists be advised not to mention possible links of al-Hilli to nuclear research,Iran, and the security services unless British authorities are afraid that it would lead to the Mossad assassination program, and to al-Hilli?
And to make the connection it would show that the Israelis are going on the offensive when it comes to getting rid of its scientific enemies, and national boundaries are no problem when it comes to taking them out.
For me, it just reminded me of the Mossad’s assassination of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh which the Swedish media took little more interest in investigating than this one of the al-Saffars.
For more about the Stockholm assassination, see this link:
http://roberthand48is.blogspot.se/2007/06/recent-undisclosed-mossad-false-flag.html
Straw44berry, 30th sept 2012, 7:35am:
Since there has been at least some speculation in the MSM wrt all of the subjects supposedly contained in the ‘D-notice’ (including about possible MOSSAD involvement, Al-Hilli’s work with a company that is part of a weapons/defence industrial giant, Mollier’s nuclear angle, etc.), though we perhaps would’ve thought there would have been more investigative journalism internationally, and since no other sources have mentioned a D-notice, one might suggest that the post on Indymedia might have been a prank or even disiniformation. In the old days, the phrase, “a Manchester journalist” mmight have suggested ‘The (Manchester) Guardian’, but not now.
The al-saffar family is a political wesp nest!
Hassan al-saffar is the leader of the saudi shias, supportive of all american interests,
standing and supporting and co-organising the uprise in bahrein, egypt and libya.
Whenever we read al-saffar we touch leaders of the shia community, or else leaders of hezbollah and high ranked politicians. Whenever we read al-saffar we read CIA and supporting american interest, regardless if it is iraq, afghanistan or libya.
Salman al-saffar was bahrain’s first ambassador to the united nations in america, salman and his family surprisingly living today in … Kingston upon thames.
http://www.un.int/wcm/content/site/bahrain/cache/offonce/home/pid/2524
Iqbal al hilli’ s brother hussein was sentenced to live imprisonment in bahrein for co-organising the latest uprise. There is pressure from the usa and usa related international human rights organisations to release him.
http://www.islamtimes.org/vdcb9fb88rhbgwp.4eur.html
Here is an interesting article regarding the al-saffar + usa connections:
replySubmitted by Abu Umar (not verified) on Wed, 2012-05-30 00:26.Protests in the Gulf are sectarian if we use the same logic directed towards the Syrian protesters and you have no clue about the sectarianism of the Bahrani and Qatifi protesters like the one of the leaders of the Qatif protesters, Nimr an-Nimr who declares Abu Bakr and Umar infidels, or Hasan as-Saffar, the leader of the Saudi Shi’ites who praises the killing of Uthman and calls for liberalism in Saudi Arabia, but doesn’t call for it in Iran and Iraq, or Ali Salman, leader of al-Wifaq who supports Bashar, so yes the Gulf Shi’ites are just as sectarian as any of the Syrian protesters. As for violence, then the only reason they haven’t resorted to violence is because they don’t have access to weapons and I have no doubt whatsoever that if Iran and Iraq can send them weapons, the peaceful nature of the protests would change instantly. As for the supposed “anti-Americanism” of these protests, then that is nonsense and the Gulf Shi’ites were the biggest supporters of the America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which were brought their allies to power with nary a single word of takhween just like the hypocrites of Amal and Hezbollah.
Well done Straw, reading through I was surprised no one had remembered Iqbal had been working in Dubai.
As for post at Claygate, all utility bills can be paid online here I assume it’s the same in the UK & one can choose to switch off deadtree statements too.
I did wonder if any of the parcels would be Amazon,surely everyone uses them at some time,especially a family with children ?
Siemens – James have denied supplying Iran with faulty rods.
I note that Siemens also shed their French involvement by selling their share in Areva to be a bigger player with the Russian Rusatom.
” The tie-up ruffled feathers in France, where Siemens recently ended a cooperation agreement with French state-controlled Areva. Their joint company, Areva NP, is scheduled to wrapped up by January 30, 2012.
Areva, which now faces a serious rival in the shape of the Siemens-Rosatom joint venture, said the draft agreement amounted to a “unilateral breach of contractual obligations.”
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/the-axis/siemens-and-iran-a-checkered-past.premium-1.466417
Second link in next comment to avoid moderation.
“According to the Financial Times Deutschland daily on Wednesday, Siemens’s new tie-up in Russia has Merkel’s full backing.”
http://www.expatica.ru/news/russian-news/Siemens-teams-up-with-Russia-for-slice-of-nuclear-pie_50208.html
Craig’s original post on this thread – the last paragraph – seemed to suggest that Daily Telegraph might be attempting to shape the reaction to the killings (“spared the children”, etc.) and seemed also to be asking why they might want to do that. The Daily Telegraph, allegedly, has been the repository of much UK spook-supplied information over the years; some journalists seemed to have gained some degree of notoriety thereof. Was Craig suggesting that some at the Daily Telegraph might be attempting to protect the SIS, or else French intel., or else MOSSAD (or perhaps a combination of the three)? Perhaps he might wish to clarify?
Suhayl.
As a regular reader of the Telegraph I find some articles very biased, but their bloggers soon pick out the wheat from the chaff, then there’s the comment threads which are very lively.
All in all I feel a balance is found & generally two sides of any argument are heard……
My previous post regarding the hot find of the al saffar family is still awaiting moderation ( a wesp nest they are!).
However, shaykh hassan al-saffar is a close relative to iqbal al-hilli. If not her brother (30%) then he is a cousin (same grandfather).
Hassan al saffar is the shia leader in saudi arabia and one of the most important clerics in the world. You will know more about him when you read my previous still unmoderated post. Hassan studied in the city of qom (iran) and he was co-founder of hezbollah.
Reports in press say that he was organising unsuccessful riots and uprise in saudi arabia and the uprise in bahrein. He was supporting revolution in libya and egypt and supporter of the usa in afghanistan and iraq war.
Here i found a leaked cia (homeland security) document regarding him:
http://www.leakoverflow.com/questions/397261/05riyadh9433-hassan-al-saffar-continues-to-decline-to-meet-usg
So the media isn’t much interested in the murders of foreigners. Here’s how to catch the culprits and solve the mystery. Plant a story that someone at the campground asked, “I wonder what happened to the kittens? The two girls were playing with four of the sweetest, most adorable, innocent, fluffiest kittens I’ve ever seen, and took them along in the BMW. I wonder what happened to those four precious kittens?
Within the hour, Murdoch’s UK Sun will have one of its famous Alex West* exclusives, “Help Us Find the Kitnapping Fiends! £1,500,000 Reward!
By day’s end, he’ll have assembled his usual cyber mob of vigilantes, and they’ll have reactivated their organizations to accept donations to fund the hunt. They’ll track the assassins to their lair, even if it’s inside Iran’s enrichment plant deep inside the mountain. They’ll throw spanners into centrifuges to save kitty cats. Along the way, various suspected Monsters holding kittens are sighted in Australia, Latvia and amongst penguins at the South Pole.
Should they decide Mossad is responsible, the Twin Barbies can lure the hitmen to Hollywood and blind them with giant hooters while Ron Jeremy and assorted Hell’s Angels mete out justice.
* Son of Admiral Alan William John West, Baron West of Spithead, previously Under-Secretary of State at the British Home Office with responsibility for Security and a Security Advisor to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. You think pops gives Alex hints about what gov. wants printed?
@ Suhayl
As I have said before, that Daily Telegraph article seems a striking example of ill-informed speculation to me. Be that as it may, any attempt to make those killings *look good* by pointing out that the “highly-trained” killers “spared” the children is bound to fall flat on its face.
Assuming that the Chevaline killings indeed were a state-sponsored assassination by a western power or Israel, I should have expected any attempts at PR damage limitation to take either of two wholly different tacks: 1. Pointing out the *necessity* of those murders by leaking information suggesting that the victims were bad people, up to no good, and had to be stopped immediately. 2. Pinning the blame on somebody else, preferably your enemies, such as Iran or Hezbollah.
I shall leave it to you all to judge whether or not you have seen either or both of these strategies in action in the mainstream media. Personally, I think that I have spotted a bit of both, but not enough to convince me that a concerted PR campaign is underway.
Another leaked cia/homeland security document regarding hassan al-saffar
http://leaks.hohesc.us/?view=08RIYADH191
Great work Bluebird, will catch up with you links later.
Peter, yes, one wonders whether this has been one of those sitautions where, even if a Western power didn’t do it, revelations about who did might risk revealing more than some Western inetl. agencies would wish – covert networks, or as James suggest, a covert ‘war’, etc. That might be another reason for the relative lack of noise.
Katie, yes, I sometimes enjoy reading the Telegraph – there is some good stuff in there – and in any case, it’s good to know how others think, etc.
NR – ha, good one!
Another politically active al-saffar relative:
Meanwhile released from jail due to usa pressure.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/medics-jailed-for-treating-bahrain-protesters-win-fight-for-retrials-2366254.html
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26226
http://raihaneh.com/news/1605/Now-I-am-not-Rula-Al-Saffar,-I-am-Suha-Bechara
@ Ferret
I appreciate the fact that you went to the library to find a source tying Mossad and/or French intelligence to the use of guns in 7.65 Browning calibre, I really do. It is striking, though, that the only source you could come up with pertains to suppressed pistols.
I don’t know whether you or the other readers are familiar with that aspect, but that is no coincidence. This particular calibre was (and still is) particularly suited for silenced handguns, because standard ammunition in that calibre has a muzzle velocity just over the speed of sound. Some brands of 7.65 Browning ammunition are supersonic, some are subsonic, and thus any well-designed pistol in that calibre will happily handle subsonic ammunition (which does not cause a “sonic crack” as the bullets break the sound barrier).
More modern calibres such as 9 x 19 Parabellum have much higher standard muzzle velocities, hence eliminating the sonic crack with a gun in such a calibre is more complicated. One either needs to use non-standard subsonic ammunition, which increases the risk of stoppages because the gun’s mechanism (the mass of the topslide and the strength of the spring) is simply not designed to handle that kind of ammo, or one needs a huge silencer that slows a standard bullet down to subsonic speeds after it has been fired.
Thus, when I learned that 7.65 cartridge cases were found at the scene (we still don’t know whether those were subsonic 7.65 Browning or supersonic 7.65 Parabellum, the calibre of that Swiss Army Luger, though), I immediately assumed that a silenced gun had been used. Witnesses’ accounts of whether or not there were shots to be heard differ: The 15-year-old on the offroad bike and his father say that they heard shots, BM and the french party of hikers say that they didn’t.
http://www.lejdd.fr/Societe/Faits-divers/Actualite/Le-scenario-minute-par-minute-de-la-tuerie-de-Chevaline-555890
Anyway, if you wish to pursue the hypothesis that state-sponsored assassins were responsible, you ought to at least entertain the *possibility* that a silenced gun (or guns) were used, because IMHO that would be the only sensible explanation of why somebody who had a well-stocked arsenal at their disposal would choose 7.65 Browing calibre.
90% likely iqbal al hilli’s father:
Must do some more research.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/bio3897.doc.htm
It isn’t her father but s relative of her father. Perhaps a cousin.
However, the al allaf family is as top positioned in international politics like it is the al saffar family and all of them have links to cia/usa and the united nations.
“Yep ! France.
Or Iran (message back)
Or Mossad Or CIA.”
After 7,000+ comments, back to square one? Again?
Which is why I’m not prepared to spend hours on Google going up detours and blind alleys, while people criticise each other and accuse each other of being a “shill/disinfo/spook/Zionist/CIA” (quoting Mod Jon, who must have the patience of a saint).
The question of “Why?” still hasn’t even been answered, nor is it likely to be by folks ‘in armchairs’ sitting at keyboards. Unless some entirely new piece of info turns up in the MSM — and if it does, it’ll presumably have been put there for a reason, *IF* there’s a cover-up going on.
But if you’re enjoying yourselves, and have oodles of time to spare, to quote Anders:
‘Carry on’
————
“Plant a story that someone at the campground asked, “I wonder what happened to the kittens? …”
Well done, NR! I LOL’d!
“The 15-year-old on the offroad bike and his father say that they heard shots, BM and the french party of hikers say that they didn’t.”
This reminds me of a true story from my youth, which highlighted for me (for the rest of my life) how entirely-truthful “witnesses” can have varying stories.
Three of us travelling to school by bike came very close to being knocked down by a double decker bus. While we were telling our stories to the headmistress (who was reporting the incident to the bus garage) she asked, “What colour was it?” Dublin’s buses were in the process of being painted, and some were Kelly green while some were cream and navy.
Oddly enough, two of us said ‘Kelly green’, and one said, ‘cream and navy’. Considering that the damn thing nearly killed us while performing an illegal manoeuvre, I found this discrepancy shocking. But all three of us were convinced we were correct.
I learned a lot that day.
What it says to me in relation to the al Hilli case, is that relatively minor discrepancies should be *completely ignored*.
Leaked usa / cia homeland security document on mr. al allaf
http://dazzlepod.com/cable/07AMMAN2615/
I am not durprised that the mentioning of the families al saffar and al allaf created an immediate D notice. this is a wesp nest in middle east politics related to usa and united nations. think about the UN sanctions during the past 30 years!
@Suhayl
Since there has been at least some speculation in the MSM wrt all of the subjects supposedly contained in the ‘D-notice’ (including about possible MOSSAD involvement, Al-Hilli’s work with a company that is part of a weapons/defence industrial giant, Mollier’s nuclear angle, etc.)
With all due respect, no and no again.
The mainstream media have, in fact, studiously avoided breaching the four terms of the D notice, and the examples you give are either inaccurate or not prohibited by the D notice.
The D notice says:
1. No mention of his links to security services
2. No mention of his links to Iran
3. No mention of his links to nuclear weapons research
4. No speculation regarding Israeli involvement
While there has been mention of Mossad either as a quote from Gary Aked, or as a reference to what loony conspiracy theorists are posting on the web, these are both direct reportage and not “speculation”. And as mention of Israeli involvement is not prohibited, these are allowed under the terms of the D notice.
Al Hilli’s work with SSTL is not involved with nuclear weapons research so is not prohibited, Sylvain Mollier’s work at Ugine has not been linked in the media to nuclear weapons research, and his links to security services and Iran haven’t been touched.
Seriously, if you can find me a mention of any of 1, 2, or 3, or speculation about 4 (Mossad) I’d love to see the reference, because I can’t find any.