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?
The secret address inforation is being fed by Peter Allen: see his report in the Sunday Express today:
No formal police interviews are taking place – but Zainab is slowly being “coaxed” into saying what happened.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/353380/Alps-shooting-girl-7-is-telling-all-to-police
So are the girls at school? Under new identities? Coaxed???
@Dopey
ROAFL
Straw44berry 21 Oct, 2012 – 8:24 pm I’m wondering where you got this fact. (Mollier’s blood on Al Hilli’s trousers) It was a point I made earlier i.e. soil on shoes not enough to say he was outside witogether but if M’s blood on his clothes its very likely he was. But then again if they were both in the car at the time of the shooting it might also. Why are there 2/3 bullet holes in passenger side if no one there? Of course this would have required Mollier being removed from the car and placed outside.
They’ll be claiming that they all shot themselves next.
@Dopey,
sorry, RAOFL..
Remember Zainab’s “bullet wound to the shoulder” or “apparent bullet wound as CNN had it…
I was searching for the term “bullet removed” and didn’t find any. Therefore one surmises it was, if it did indeed happen (which I somehow doubt), then I anxiously look for an update on her fractured skull and bullet wound…..
I see very little, except the Daily Telegraph, which reported a month after all previous updates stopped, on 10 October that Zainab “is still being treated for a bullet wound and severe head injuries….”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9599174/Alps-family-murder-French-police-launch-witness-appeal-as-clues-run-out.html
Notice no mention now of a fractured skull. Have they forgotten the narrative??? Assuming there was no bullet to extract, how long does it need for a bullet wound, which must be a graze, to be treated??
@Felix
Bullet could have exited the girl if hitting no bone, child being slightly built. Still would be a serious wound.
@Felix
“BTW what are the links for SAH’s other non-fatal bullet wounds??”
Felix I am trying to back track I read it somewhere today that SAH had been hit before getting back to car, so far I cant find the source so best to ignore untill I do ,I have read a lot today because its a day off and I only remember seeing it once so it may be false I will keep looking though.
If the shooter had to reload three times, then can we now assume that the first round was used to disable Mollier, shoot at least one bullet Saad’s way and possibly into the daughter’s shoulder?
That would be at least five bullets in the first round (possibly seven if Mollier was shot five times in the body and not three). As Saad legs it to the car, shooter reloads- how long does it take to change a cartridge again?
If the last round was used to put two bullets each in four heads that leaves one round unaccounted for. So, amidst all the chaos of shooting Mollier several times, shooting Saad, shooting the kid, Saad getting back to the car etc etc the shooter must have changed cartridges twice – two rounds (of 16, or is it 17 bullets) with at least five (or seven) bullets hitting a human.
Is it really possible that the shooter could have changed cartridges twice and quickly enough the first time to manage to start shooting again before Saad drove off or the family tried to run for it?
orry I should have said for the shooter to change cartridges once
” bullet in the shoulder” was the standard phrase early on. I ask again, why was it not reported as being removed by surgeons? Surely that would be (good) news at the time?? Did they forget??
This does imply a lodged bullet [if indeed it did happen]
I’m keeping an open mind as to the fractured skull/pistol whipped reports. They could be true. They could also be exaggeration to create a feeling of outrage in the public. Plus, what better cover for later claims of a victim remembering nothing than head injuries?
Dopey 21 Oct, 2012 – 10:05 pm I hear what you say but I would remind you it took him TEN MINUTES on the BBC interview to even EXPLAIN what he did! Are you suggesting it would take less time to do than say? Just play in your mind cycling up the hill the time to take in the scene, then to tend to Zainab and move her, then to move to Mollier and drag a heavy dead (!) weight, then to move to car, decide what to do, smash window reach in and turn of the engine, then walk around car taking in all the occupants and deciding if they were alive or dead, then take out his phone tap in the number and wait to get the message and decide what to do before GOING BACK to Zainab and tending her, and coming to the “uncomfortable” decision to leave her, walking to his bike and cycling 3/400 yards and in a state of panic getting a message over in pigeon French before a telehone call could be placed. Are you saying fifteen or twenty minutes for all that is excessive?
@Pink
early on: (Mail)
Mr Maillaud said that each corpse was found with at least three bullets, and ‘at least one bullet to the head’.
It’s like a brain teaser. “If four people are shot with x bullets and each body has at least y bullets in it, of which one is to the head, how many…..”
Why not just say.
Later, “Autopsies revealed that each of the four dead victims were hit by several bullets and shot twice in the head.” [as reiterated by Al-Jazeera today]
Again, why not just say? If indeed autopsies were carried out.
“It’s like a brain teaser. “If four people are shot with x bullets and each body has at least y bullets in it, of which one is to the head, how many…..”
They’ll probably add that question to the next round of GCSE Maths exam papers.
@Tim
I think I would have tried to phone the emergency services a bit quicker before doing the Florence Nightingale bit.
I Need to spend some time transcribing the whole of the WBM interview.
Tim V, put like that yes you have a point.
I think we need to stage a reinactment. I may try to enlist the help of my parents next weekend, after Sunday lunch but before the cuppas and Battenburg cake stage of it.
Unless anyone can assemble their own gang of helpers to try it out sooner?
@Dopey
Is it really possible that the shooter could have changed cartridges twice and quickly enough the first time to manage to start shooting again before Saad drove off or the family tried to run for it?
er, in a nutshell (nutshelly) no. It’s all poppycock.
@Dopey
RAOFL
Don’t forget your passports…
No, even with th skorpion Dopey 21 Oct, 2012 – 10:47 pm it could still be twice – three x10 magazines. My feeling is there were at least TWO shooters. Bullet holes both sides of car and so many targets number of bullets would make it likely. Could it be “one crazed psychopath” requires only one gun and this is now the preferred story to avoid one of assassination team hit?
Felix there’s a big hill with woods behind their house. My dad has an estate car and I’ll use his MTB. If I can borrow a couple of the neighbour’s kids I think we can manage there, without having to decamp to Chevaline to do it.
Tim I think there has to have been more than one shooter too. Too many people flying about in too short a time frame for one shooter to have floored them all without any of them escaping.
Ikbal could supposedly drive so, unless she was frozen with fear, why didnt she climb into the drivers seat whilst Saad was dodging bullets outside?
I’m not sure a mother would be frozen to the spot if her daughter was outside being shot/shot at. A mother’s protective instinct would surely kick in? I don’t think she had time, so there had to be more than one shooter IMO.
@Felix
I think this is where I got impression he was shot outside the vehicle from, but I now think I was mistaken and it means when SM was shot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9621670/French-cyclist-was-prime-target-in-Alps-massacre.html
” They believe the attacker then surprised Mr Hilli who was outside the vehicle with his oldest daughter when the first shots were fired.
Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud on Friday vehemently denied that investigators had any idea of the order the victims were shot, calling it a “web of lies and pure invention”.
However, he confirmed that it was suspected that Mr Hilli was outside the car when he was shot. “
http://nuclearexportcontrols.blogspot.ca/2012/10/germany-probing-illegal-exports-to-iran.html#more
Natural uranium used in heavy water reactors can provide plutonium and tritium used in nuclear weapons.
Iran has cozied up to Zimbabwe in the past, which has built a large airfield near it Marange diamond mining area.
Was Sylvain Mollier a whistleblower or an active participant in some deal that got him shot, either for trade secrets or materials?
@ straw44berry 21 Oct, 2012 – 9:00 pm
“If the official line is a fairystory they must have a goal they are heading towards, you would think. All they have done so far isnt to confuse, it is make almost impossible to believe there is any truth in the story.
6 weeks ago I would have taken this story like any other news story, by believing it.
Now I question almost every major happening in the last 10/15 years : –
9/11 7/7 Soham Murders Diana Jimmy Saville et al I am questioning the original moon landings.
JFK was the only conspiracy theory I believed in. I no longer believe the BBC.
What is my world coming to? Or am I finally seeing the light?”
This is in regard to something unrelated, but it applies to this case too.
“This tale smells all the way to Denmark. Of the two writers, X and Y, who broke this story in businessinsider.com, one is an ex-military NCO, generally on the right-wing side of things. Their story is they happened upon the emails, again all accidental like, because one or both of them live in a building owned by Mr. Y, who explains how he met Z and gives them the emails. They assure us that they’ve transcribed the emails verbatim, yet they read nothing like Z.
“As an aside, businessinsider.com is written for the most part by self-appointed freelance “experts,” and no one questions their expertise or sources. It’s owned by Henry Blodget, a one time stock analyst, who was busted by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, before the securities industry busted Eliot in retaliation. Merrill Lynch had to pay a $100 million fine for reports issued by analysts, most notably Henry Blodgett, who has run businessinsider.com since 2009 and finally turned a profit of around $2,000 this year. Was it perhaps subsidized by a right-wing angel? Nothing wrong with that in itself. George Soros and others [Huffington Post] do the same on the left of the spectrum.
“Another of these services is examiner.com, owned by Phil Anshutz (AEG), who is a family values supporter, and his site features heavily in Z’s Excellent Adventure. Anschutz has 55,000 freelancers, by no means all biased to the right, and it actually turns a profit. The problem with these web sites is that numerous other sites of the same political leanings link to them and in turn lesser sites link to those. Much linking is fully automated, based on tags, so large parts of what passes for news on the Internet is self-generated in a few milliseconds, much like high-speed stock trading without the circuit breakers, until it rises to the level of established fact and is picked up by the so-called mainstream press at which point it’s fact set-in-stone.”
The http://www.examiner.com is suggested as a good place, “To get your story out” by those on the right-wing. In fact one of their freelance writers who featured heavily in reporting on Z, and biased in my opinion, also wrote one piece on Chevaline in the early days, and was quoted by a few of the mainstream press as an “expert.”
These Internet freelances are paid approximately US$0.01 per page view, if they’re paid at all, so it’s more of a “Make Money From Home” for extra income, not a full-time job. Some of them are very good writers and fast too, putting out two or three stories every day. I’d suspect many of them are easily and cheaply bought, political people or agencies feeding them “scoops” or interesting bits along with free dinners, tickets, trips, stock tips and a miscellaneous ithing now and then. Same as the self-appointed “movie reviewers” “product testers” “travel writers” and so forth.
What’s different about Chevaline is the uniformity of the stories across the political spectrum and in various countries.
The news has always been biased in one way or another, cover-ups, leaks, barely plausible stories, but up to the JFK affair 90% of the public believed the “official” story.
Le Parisiene is also giving more details about the sighting of the motorcycle by the farmer. http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/tuerie-de-chevaline-la-mysterieuse-moto-aux-grandes-sacoches-18-10-2012-2243921.php
The bike had saddle bags, was travelling (with some difficulty) on a trail called col de Chérel according to the un-named farmer.
The piece states that this trail doesn’t lead directly from the murder scene, rather from a place called Martinet
Aah yes, Mr Anschutz is an interesting study. He’s another dubious character.
Regarding mockford and exxon linked to HAARP:
Exxon has ties to HAARP. ARCO used to be a part of Standard Oil – the same Rockefeller company that Exxon is from. The patents described below were the package of ideas which were originally controlled by ARCO Power Technologies Incorporated (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Company, one of the biggest oil companies in the world. APTI was the contractor that built the HAARP facility. ARCO sold this subsidiary, the patents and the second phase construction contract to E-Systems in June 1994. http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html {http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/haarp.html The key document in the bunch is U.S. Patent number 4,686,605, considered by HAARP critics to be the “smoking raygun,” so to speak. Held by ARCO Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), the ARCO subsidiary contracted to build HAARP, this patent describes an ionospheric heater very similar to the HAARP heater invented by Bernard J. Eastlund, a Texas physicist. In the patent–subsequently published on the Internet by foes of HAARP–Eastlund describes a fantastic offensive and defensive weapon that would do any megalomaniacal James Bond super villain proud. {http://spinspace.com/biophysics/haarp.htm Arco and Exxon continue to be business partners: The discovery well is located on a lease in which Arco and Exxon each own a 50 % interest. Working in concert with the State of Alaska, Arco and Exxon plan to begin long-term test production from the discovery well in the first half of 1998. BP Exploration, as Prudhoe Bay western area operator, served as drilling operator on this well on behalf of Arco and Exxon {http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/discover/dix81493.htm Cold Spring Harbor (like Exxon, a creation of the Rockefeller familiy) also has the copywrite to HARRP’s website. (211)”Death in the Air” pp. 299, 310-321, http://www.cannabisculture.com/news/gwbayer {http://lederman.911review.org/629genome.html For more on Cold Spring Harbor’s ties to eugenics and depopulation, see the above two links.
@Bluebird
The Mockford case is fascinating. Not a dicky bird this side of the channel, and lid tightly on now in Benelux.
Nothing on the Exxon Machelen website.
I notice Mockford ran a pretty good 20k in Brussels in 2010:
1.38.13 running for Exxon. He came back in a respectable 5129th place (out of over 25K) aged 57. Fit guy.
http://users.ugent.be/~pdevuyst/uit2010/bru30mei.pdf
@Intp1
Martinet is the car park.
They’re getting desperate now, new “evidence” which would have been known and useful 6 weeks ago just being “released”
The motorcyclist now sounds more like a city courier, perhaps lost with an urgent package from Paris…“often seen to dismount”…”could be a relay for the shooter “ [yea, like delivering written instructions]
It’s not just the farmer who is cheesy.
all so complex…they’re getting bogged down, just like the back axle on Saad’s BMW (allegedly)
The mysterious motorcyclist on the Col de Chérel:
warning bells,/b>: “…according to Le Parisien…”