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?
many thanks A. Wryman
20 Oct, 2012 – 8:04 pm. I know the two BBC interviews – one 10 mins and the 3 min abbreviated version but i havent seen the sun source. i ll go check it out and thanks again
@Tim
I found this post by made by Oui on MZT that may help
Escape route white Peugeot 206/306 witnessed near Chevaline
Video taken in front of the home Sylvie Lecoeur. Location is in Chevaline, intersection of Chemin rural dit de la Grande Combe and Chemin du Moulin. The supermarkt was most likely in Droussard, so the white car traveled on Chemin de la Corbette / Chemin rural du Pré des Granges à Ugeret. In Armand he made a left on Chemin rural de Chevaline à Armand from where in a sharp right turn he would meet Sylvie Lacoeur at the intersection with Route de Chevaline. Escape route via Droussard on Route de Pont Monnet (D281) and turns left on Route d’Annecy (D1508). This is a major route Ugine – Faverges – Annecy.@Tim
@TimV BM says on the video that he had been out for about 1.5 hrs from 2.30pm. Could have cycled up the back way (Rue du Moulin) with SM and not been spotted. The latest time he could go up would be 3.20pm – allowing just 20 mins to do it?? SM getting there a few minutes earlier. That would just fit with the BMW having gone past that last house in Chemin Rural dit de la Grande Combe at 3.20. The witness Laurent Fillion-Robin said he saw only the BMW ’15 hours, maybe a little later’ (later is said to have added that he saw a 4×4 and motorbike earlier) The timing doesnt really fit though – unless the pictures at Arnaud were really an hour earlier (ie BST and 1 hour out) Fits better if BM takes his usual half hour to go up and arrives pre 4pm, with the shooting having been 10 – 15 mins earlier, and he meets vehicles on the way down. There is a long Caserne Pompiers (‘barracks)’in Doussard, about 15 bays long: 5 minutes away.
@Tim
If you can locate Oui post its has the headline
Escape route white Peugeot 206/306 witnessed near Chevaline
She/He posts a link to the map showing Sylvie Lecoeur’s house on streetview the details are
Chemin du Moulin
74210 Chevaline, France
The link is stupidly long so I wont post it here .
@Tim
fwiw – I think the 3.48 time was put into the public domain to make it look genuine. It can’t be proven. That’s why other facts don’t agree with it. If you start with a lie and add more details, it all comes out of joint more visibly as you have shown. There is,btw, no evidence for any bicycles at the scene at all. The photos of BM in his triathlon,mysteriously released afterwards, is to reinforce the narrative. The digital reconstruction images of the disposition of the bodies on news broadcasts immediately afterwards is another trick to make us believe the narrative.
The only fact we know reliably is that BM is no innocent bystander. The whole story, including newly released “facts” thereby falls.
Thanks for the hint about Sun reports.
This one is particularly informative by Ryan Parry, 12 September: witnesses at the first campsite, Europa, are interviewed, including Dutch couple Rita and Raphael Vuylsteke (photo) and more interestingly Belgians Raphael and Rita Vuylsteke, both 59,
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4533578/Shaken-hiker-recalls-how-he-tried-to-revive-schoolgirl-at-scene-of-the-French-massacre.html
[The Grandmother] was holding the hand of the youngest child and walked right through our pitch, right in front of our caravan, but didn’t say hello.”
Yet the younger child didn’t know who the “grandmother” was. I don’t believe it.
The public prosecutor, Eric Maillaud, told the press conference that four-year-old Zeena said she was with her mummy, daddy and sister but said that she did not know the other woman (believed to be her grandmother) very well.
[Guardian 11 Sept]
Fairy story.
@Thomas: Yes, of course there is an explanation. If Iqbal was shot, and if the pathologist couldn’t tell that there were two bullet holes, it could mean that the pathologist is not a particular good one (there have been many lately in the news who were not qualified, or simply were out of their league), or it could mean that she suffered a wound so great there was not much to tell from. This is all ifs and coulds. Another could: this could be another fairy tale.
I don’t know about France, but the chief coroner in one incident I followed was an ex-air force flight surgeon. It might be worth checking the pathologist’s credentials.
Can you help with what is happening in the photo for this article and why they wanted to publish it:-
http://www.news.com.au/world/forensics-reveal-details-of-gruesome-alps-family-killing/story-fndir2ev-1226499851510
Isn’t it quite unusual for a murder victim’s home to be searched so thoroughly by the police as though they are the guilty party? Has Mollier’s home been subjected to this?
Most from the recent article in leparisien denied by investigators:
http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2012/10/20/tuerie-de-chevaline-l-ordre-d-execution-des-4-victimes-reste-inconnu
They don´t know the order of the killing or if it was made by a professional killer or not.
But they confirm that al-Hilli been outside the car.
@Straw – excellent photo find. Justin Tallis has a large number of “forensic photos” at 26 Oaken Lane at the Le parisien site,
http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/en-images-les-mysteres-de-la-maison-des-al-hilli-08-09-2012-2156107.php?pic=17#infoBulles1
Interestingly, this one does not appear. Looks like upholstery being taken apart for the camera. The photos of protective suited operatives with clipboards wearing face masks and rubber gloves in the garden is a ridiculous photo call.
Was he allowed internal access? I don’t think so. So, where was the Australian/Times photo taken?
The “upholstery” photo is accompanied by another one from the same vantage point – under a vehicle? – of evidence bags.
see {http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/police-investigate-three-leads-in-brutal-alps-killings/story-fnd12peo-1226473050062} from Sept 13.
There are 4 pages of photos outside the house here
{http://tipsimages.it/Search/search_editorial.asp?laid=2&ofid=1&imid=1260737&styp=keyw&logi=and&or_h=h&or_v=v&or_s=s&or_p=p&tp_f=f&tp_i=i&tp_c=c&ps_1=1&ps_2=2&ps_3=3&ps_g=g&pgsz=50&scsa=smpl&cl_c=c&cl_bw=bw&chrm=1&chrf=1&chcfa=start&chcil=start&chcfs=start&chcar=start&chefs=start&chene=start&chesp=start&cheen=start&ched=ed&latest=false&SCTP=edit&SRCV=Claygate&p=1&p=1&rm=2&p=1&p=1&rm=3&p=1&p=1&PageNumber=4}
The group of 7 mothers from Claygate school with dark glasses is quite surreal. Why did they need to hide their identities??
Who is the interesting mediterranean/middle eastern man here? He is also captured in a TV video, which just pans away before his face is shown.
{http://tipsimages.it/Photo/ShowImage_Editorial_Popup.asp?laid=2&ofid=1&styp=keyw&logi=and&or_h=h&or_v=v&or_s=s&or_p=p&tp_f=f&tp_i=i&tp_c=c&ps_1=1&ps_2=2&ps_3=3&ps_g=g&pgsz=50&cl_c=c&cl_bw=bw&chrm=1&chrf=1&chcfa=start&chcil=start&chcfs=start&chcar=start&chefs=start&chene=start&chesp=start&cheen=start&ched=ed&latest=false&IMID=1601805&SCTP=edit&SCSA=smpl}
I hadn’t seen these “minute’s silence” photos before
{http://www.leta.lv/eng/photo/printpreview/133054D9-D858-9C65-685A-64C1B069A4A5/}
{http://www.leta.lv/eng/photo/printpreview/133054D0-759B-8B7C-DC8A-1AEF9B32EA61/}
which make the dark glasses of the “mums” even more strange.
@Thomas
Tell me where the “mud” is in the photo accompanying the article,alluded to earlier??? No wonder the French police won’t say whether an analysis was done on Saad’s shoes.
The article says precisely nothing.
Where are the photos, bicycles, bodies? Too late now.
Saad might have had a spot of mild bother with his neighbour at no 24 Oaken Lane over house modifications by Mr & Mrs Gerard Stubbs:
Ping App 2010_0277 – EAPS – 150310.pdf
well, I’m guessing it is his letter of objection, rather than that from 1 Oaken Drive but it might have been the latter.
Minutes – EAPS – 150310.pdf
re application 2010/0277 at Elmbridge Council
The Stubbs don’t seem to have figured in news reports.
@ dopey 20 Oct, 2012 – 7:43 pm
““Mr Fillion-Robin added that he did not hear any shots fired that afternoon and said that the car park was not the sort of place that families with young children would usually go”.
And yet it’s supposedly a popular spot. BM said it was more unusual for no cars to be there, as normally 5 or 6 cars were at the spot. He said he himself had been there once with his own family.”
Every reference to SM reminds us he was “the father of three,” and every mention of BM says he was “Ex-RAF”, or “brave Ex-RAF who saved child’s life,” nothing about his present work or “father of kids” – the above is the first I have seen of him having any family at all.
What ifs: BM arrives at the turn-out earlier, before the murders? There is a meeting arranged between him and SM – spy and contact perhaps, or something else? BM goes to bushes to pee? SAH family arrives, part of spy story or not? Shootings start – Mossad or other agency or lone nutter?
BM behaves badly, not bravely as by his account, but panics – which fits with Pierre Didierjean’s story. Because he was in RAF some time ago does not necessarily mean he has combat experience or expert powers of observation. He moves victims, as he said, shuts off engine, and cycles down road for help.
Pierre D. claims BM was in panic, speaking broken French. One would think if BM had property there, supervising workmen and in a cycling club, he’d have enough French to convey a big emergency, a shooting, and police and ambulance were needed immediately, even if had to pantomime parts.
But instead of first calling for help, BM and Pierre D. (don’t know about PD’s two companions – or did they stay in car and make emergency call?) go back up to crime scene, spend some time with 7 year old girl, then back down road to make call, then back to crime scene, whereupon they now decide it might not be safe, and abandon possibly dying girl, and go down road again where they meet emergency services coming up. Have I got that right? It is crazy, no?
Did BM specifically say the cyclist who passed him or was ahead of him on the road up to the turn-out was SM? I recall him saying “a” cyclist. Did he later realize the dead cyclist was the one who had passed him?
Nick Mockford, Belgium – logistics advisor, Chemicals
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/774/298
Professional Profile & Networking – LinkedIn
We’re sorry, but the profile you requested does not exist.
Not cached.
If he had been shot 2/3 times in the head in the UK, would it have been a)local news b)national news??? D notice??
The Steenpoel Golf Club at Itterbeek, Brussels, has put up a tribute photo of Nick Mockford, sending condolences to his wife and family
http://www.steenpoel.be/Pages/Client/Content.aspx?skinid=79
Al-Hilli: Police now believe it was the work of an amateur
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/french-alps-shootings-cyclist-shot-1388316
So, as usual, believe the opposite.
I get the impression there is a war going on amongst the investigators which explains leaks now coming out.
Firstly the local police must be seething mad as they were ordered in the first place not to searh the vehicles until national security types arrived from Paris. The belated finding of the 4 year old would have been huge embarrassment. Also elements within English investigators not seemingly happy with French tactics.
latest from – 7 year old girl is speaking of event –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220780/Schoolgirl-orphaned-Alps-massacre-standing-father-killer-struck.htm
quotes from the above – same old –
“French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, a 45-year-old nuclear industry worker…”
“The first witness on the scene – an ex RAF serviceman from Britain…”
“No family or friends of Mr Mollier have spoken about his death, nor released a photograph of the father of three…”
“He had two teenage boys from a previous marriage while his new partner, a pharmacist, gave birth in June…”
“Brett Martin, a 53-year-old Englishman who used to be in the RAF…”
Felix, not unusual at all for the mothers to be wearing sunglasses, it was very sunny I see nothing sinister there at all.
RE: Monkford, did you see my posting on Exxon yesterday , I think it explains his murder ?
Also, why do police think Saad was out of the car when first shot ? The foot print could easily have made before anything happened & he was back in the car by the time the killer arrived
NR.
That DM page has vanished ! Was it a new one ?
From the Mirror link posted by Felix.
“The cyclist’s body was moved at some point, also suggesting the assassin had a particular interest in him.”
Could the killer have in fact searched Molliers body for something ?
I wish we knew if he was wearing lycra garb or not.
Here is the correct address.
NR simply cut off a -l in the end:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220780/Schoolgirl-orphaned-Alps-massacre-standing-father-killer-struck.html
Yes, could be he searched him but, other than perhaps roll him over, why would he have to move him for that?
I can only think the body was in the way ..of the getaway vehicle, but as said previously, why bother moving the body you’ve just killed instead of driving over it? Unless they didn’t want evidence/forensics on the car tyres.
Or they moved him to stop Saad driving away.
Or they moved him to make the scene look different.
I can’t think of any other reasons for moving him – anyone else?
So, if that DM report is right, they knew Saad was out of the car because Zainab told them. This was then corroberated by sand and gravel on Saad’s shoes.
And then there’s this
“Mr Mollier’s glasses and bicycle pump were also found ‘a fair distance’ from where his lifeless body was found lying next to the car, said the source, suggesting it had been moved.”
[So, if that DM report is right, they knew Saad was out of the car because Zainab told them. This was then corroberated by sand and gravel on Saad’s shoes.
And then there’s this
“Mr Mollier’s glasses and bicycle pump were also found ‘a fair distance’ from where his lifeless body was found lying next to the car, said the source, suggesting it had been moved.”]
@Katie 21 Oct, 2012 – 8:52 am
NR.That DM page has vanished ! Was it a new one ?
Sorry, think I clipped the l off of .html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220780/Schoolgirl-orphaned-Alps-massacre-standing-father-killer-struck.html
Thanks NR, I should have noticed that.
OK, so could a bicycle pump release itself if the bike fell ? Are they trying to say Mollier was shot whilst still on the bike ?
Or……was the body dragged away to make police think this was nothing to do with the bike & what it may have carried within the pump/tubes/seat ?
Felix,
Following your photo links I did find a news article that I hadnt seen with different photo from Canada’s National post.com.
A related story about Zeena hiding says:
The driver was identified by the Sipa news agency as Saad al Hilli, a resident of a London suburb
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/06/girl-4-stays-hidden-under-dead-mothers-skirt-for-eight-hours-while-police-guard-crime-scene/
I thought Saad was identified thru the ‘fairytale’ Police contacted the Campsite.
Felix, Thanks for the photo of the evidence bags
I think this is very revealing actual photos of collected evidence, I dont believe British press would have printed this photo
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/police-investigate-three-leads-in-brutal-alps-killings/story-fnd12peo-1226473050062
– clearly in the right hand bag are the words:-
Dar Al Hidayah – Agency
@ anyone – Please all look at this article -Do you have any ideas about this book?