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?
Kathy please keep me out of this Saddam controversy. I have absolutely NO interest in this brute individual. It is ONLY the sick mind of Bluebird, which insists of connecting him to Judaism (!).
I don’t know if the expression: “Holy Christ” is wholy appropriate here, but you get the drift!
Kenneth I only mentioned you as Bluebird war replying to your post.
Timwrote:
Rubbish – it’s just because they couldn’t voucher for the authencity of the Mollier photo. Just like we coudln’t when it was last up in here. The main difference between them and us is that they managed to run the story through the presses for ONE day — and then sell the papers –, and ONE day — the first — is all what matters in the Newspaper business. When will you ever learn about [newspaper] business.
edit freudian slip – was not war. Anyway how can you discuss Iraq without mentioning Saddam?
@ Kenneth
31 Oct, 2012 – 3:46 pm
But the photo wasn’t up for a day Kenneth. The article was edited within half an hour, and the photo hasn’t appeared in the paper edition of the DM.
@KS re Iraqi Hasemite monarchy…
This monarchy was invented, like Iraq, at the time of the post-imperial carve up of the Arabian Gulf. The imposition of a Saudi Hashemite prince as monarch never really took root – I think there were only three or four incumbents of the ‘throne’. One of the last of them bought a stately home in the UK – in Surrey, of course – in the early 1950s. The post-colonial century that has followed ‘independence’ (within the British ‘sphere of influence’) has been an absolute disaster. Were it not for oil the people of the region might have been allowed to work things out for themselves.
re the SM photo –
Perhaps that is simply not the Sylvain Mollier who was murdered at Combe de l’Iré.
Speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright, he certainly didn’t live a boring life. Murders, two homes going up in smoke, a morphine addicted wife and thought to be a dodgy art dealer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright
I agree CD
31 Oct, 2012 – 2:08 pm All points I have previously made. Regards, Tim.
“It contradicts everything that would have been drummed into him as an RAF pilot to “remove a casualty” (let alone a child) from danger.”
Not really, he’d only have had basic first aid training which teaches people NOT to move a casualty unless absolutely necessary. He could’ve done more harm than good. It must’ve been a difficult decision to make but I think he did the right thing.
CD
You mean modern boundaries were created by Britain for Iraq as it didn’t “invent” it . Iraq has always existed as the land between the rivers from the time of Sumer and the subsequent Islamic empire and the indigenous people are still there. Britain did not create Iraq – that is propaganda put out to justify the recent western occupation of Iraq. The boundaries Britain created cut off Kuwait which really is part of Iraq, thus cutting off it’s access to the sea with dire consequences for Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq
Kempe don’t you think it would have been wiser to go straight to the car & either speak to the driver…..or, in this case switch off the engine ?
I think it bizarre he treated Zainab first, by not going to the car first it was as though he knew it couldn’t move……no matter what he’s told us.
@Kempe
The huge elephant in in the car park is quite why Martin and the other alleged witnesses, just melted away with no interaction with any emergency services at all. We don’t even know where Martin went afterwards. Or indeed where the other alleged witnesses went.
Big trouble is, if he tries to embellish a story which contains distortions of the truth, bigger holes than now will appear in it. This must be the reason why he has given one and only one interview to one outlet of the media. And why no alleged French witnesses have spoken to the press.
Especially astonishing is that Martin says a “couple of Gendarme vehicles” passed him on his way down. And the Gendarmes themselves did not even worry about a cyclist fleeing from the scene on a bike, who could have been a perpetrator or key witness. How many vehicles or people did the Gendarmes see on the road coming towards them, potential key witnesses? He “wasn’t able to hail them”, and they showed no interest in him. It makes no sense whatsoever.
@Tim V 3:33PM
When public documents start disappearing from the internet and interviews of witnesses start losing dialogue and newspaper stories get wiped, you know you are on to something.
Right on. Yes, there’s the possibility it wasn’t the right SM but chances are the DM had more resources to investigate than people here did and wouldn’t have put it up in the first place unless they had at least some verification.
What gets scrubbed and disappeared is the smell test of the trail to follow.
We’ll see what happens with that hashim picture.
@Dopey: I guess it shouldn’t be a shock that the al-Hillis were embalmed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embalming
It fits with France’s track record regarding Muslims and cultural traditions.
@ Q
No shock re the Al Hillis you’re right, but interesting that Mollier wasn’t embalmed. It’s Mollier who got the temporary funeral and wasn’t embalmed- why the difference between them?
Gosh, this thread is still going! Perhaps it’ll run on to infinity, or maybe in fact it’s been running from eternity (in both senses) and we, here on this blog, simply leapt onto the ‘moving pen’.
I notice that the French investigator keeps on suggesting that ‘this will take a very, very long time to solve’. How does he know? If they are pursuing lots of leads, which he says they are, maybe something will turn up tomorrow! I find this approach rather strange. I mean, it’s one thing to be brutally honest and say, ‘yes, this is a complex case which may take some time to solve. But we are pursuing many leads…’ and singing dolefully, ‘Oh Lord! This will take 10 years or more to solve! We may never solve it, in fact. It’s gonna take a very, very, very long time, man. It might even take until the “Year 2525, will man still be alive, can woman survive…?” (Zager and Evans, 1970). Maybe he’s trying to lull the murderer into a false sense of security, or something. It seems distinctly odd, though.
And no-one who knew him speaking about M. Mollier, not even his butcher, his baker, his candlestick maker. Odd, through and through.
A lone nut. Hmn. Are they about to pin it on some mentally ill person a la Jill Dando’s murder? One can see them hauling some yokel from a barn somewhere.
@Dopey
“… interesting that Mollier wasn’t embalmed. It’s Mollier who got the temporary funeral and wasn’t embalmed- why the difference between them?”
—–
I think the Al Hilli’s had to be embalmed because of French regulations regarding moving bodies across the border.
@Dopey
Who wrote that at Marilyn Tomkins about embalming? It continues…However, according to French law a body that is to leave French territory, even if it is to be taken just a mile across the French frontier, must be embalmed. So, clearly all this was one mysterious, secret operation, involving transport and funeral directors on both sides of the channel, and yet nothing at all was observed or leaked out. As if by magic. Just like the transport of the orphans.
Simon Cox is an investigative journalist, writer and technology presdenter, according to his Twitter bio. He tweeted at 13:15 today (31 Oct 2012).
“@simoncoxreports: I see the Mail managed to put wrong pic of French cyclist in Al Hilli case. One they featured still v much alive. Oops.”
That’s interesting Q. I wonder how Simon Cox knows ?
@ P
31 Oct, 2012 – 7:34 pm
So Mollier remains the invisible man then. I bet the DM reporter got a good kicking from his editor.
Not being provocative Kempe 31 Oct, 2012 – 4:56 pm, but you think he was right to LEAVE a critically injured 7 yr old on the bare ground alone and just cycle home? Hmmmmmm I beg to differ. And I would suggest the FIRST rule of first aid is to remove the casualty from danger even if it might entail complications to their physical or medical condition. Would he leave a co-pilot in a plane that might catch fire? Leaving aside the issue of a humanitarian one of maintaining a comforting/ monitoring brief of the patient, if it was too dangerous for them to stay, it was certainly too dangerous for a vulnerable little girl don’t you think?
Felix 31 Oct, 2012 – 6:05 pm I agree with you but one correction I think. WBM actually gave two interviews to different interviewers for BBC and Sky and they compliment one another and cover slightly different parts of the story. However they are both filmed in what appears to be the same rather nondescript office room and certainly not a professional studio. Cheers.
At Dopey 31 Oct, 2012 – 7:00 pm. The burial of Sylvain Mollier is also rather strange. It was clearly done in some secrecy and what appears to be undue haste. You would undoubtedly have expected in such a high profile and strange killing, for the body to be maintained pristine refrigerated state, should later questions arise or a second opinion be required. One may understand and sympathise with the families wish to inter their loved one, but in the interests of justice and preventing further outrages, this must be secondary to the investigation. The parallels with the JFK autopsy procedures appear, on the face of it, to be considerable. Of course once natural deterioration begins it is quite impossible to check or challenge whatever is officially claimed to be the case.
Could I repeat a request to all you clever computer buffs (BB, Felix,Dopey et al?) to produce a map that locates WBM and SM’s home locations? You all no doubt noted they conveniently both set off on their bikes at 2.30! perhaps in France everybody does. It would be interesting to see their respective routes to Combe d’Ire.
Tim; well he didn’t leave the girl and go home he went for help. Go on any first aid course and one golden rule they’ll teach you is not to move the casualty unless they are in immediate danger. You can make things much worse especially if spinal injuries are involved.
@ dopey 31 Oct, 2012 – 12:09 pm
“Yes, you’re right Katie- the photo has gone. We weren’t certain that it WAS Mollier. Surely the press would have checked it out for certain before publishing it? Within 30 minutes of that article being published with the photo they were editing it.”
It was ’cause “somebody” from our group suggested to the DM they might want to verify they had the right pic, as they’d likely mixed up the cyclist with the hunter, as we had initially.
As for the DM taking great care to verify in advance, it’s doubtful they do a great deal of due diligence these days. Though it’s my favorite online paper – a good mix of hard news, salacious gossip, celebrity stuff, and many reasonably high-res pics, plus fast loading (4-6 pages open at the same time with no problem) – it’s obvious the writers and editors are hugely overburdened with each working several stories at the same time.
Almost all items have misspellings and grammatical errors.
@Dopey: Good question re: Sylvain Mollier. Is he Muslim, too? He was not moved across international borders. All the burying/unburying, etc. is most confusing. Remember the story about his father’s death?
I’m wondering if our Sylvain Mollier is Algerian or some-such.
Q, at 9:08pm on 31.10.12:
“All the burying/unburying, etc. is most confusing.”
Perhaps Mollier is a vampire.
Well, it is Halloween and here in Scotland, you know, that’s always been a big thing.