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?
Bluebird
All I am saying is that Basil is a fairly common name in Iraq and whatever you say about the al prefix, it does generally appear in Arabic names just like Mc in Scottish names. It is also rare to find it among Iraqi Christians. Can’t imagine Iraqi “Fredericks” but I will take your word for it.
Few accept the official line that WBM just “stumbled” on the scene. If he wasn’t there purely by chance, what WAS his role. The “Guttergrunt” advanced an hypothetical argument that he could be the murderer. I can’t accept that but nor do I think he has been wholly truthful. If neither killer or innocent, what could have been his function and for whom. Was he (perhaps unwittingly) part of an assassination plot or was he genuinely taken by surprise? Were his actions philanthropic and intended to help, or to confuse and cover-up? Why if he was part of a conspiracy, did he not lie in his TV interview five days later, and support the French story that he had phoned at 3.48 that has caused such credibility problems subsequently?
Kathy
Frederick Kamel alOufi
We talked yesterday and today about him. He lived for more than 10 years in the Hashim al Hilli house in Putney.
If you wish, i can list you 100 iraqis with first name Frederick. Frederick is popular amongst christians in syria and iraq. I told you why. However we should use our time for the important questions.
Hi! Read everything you all wrote and there are a few findings I want to share with you. Some time ago I found this strange message about a missing cow, later to be found with a bullet in its head. http://www.ledauphine.com/savoie/2012/09/15/une-vache-retrouvee-tuee-par-balle I thought this could be done by a maniac as a supposed maniac in Annecy could have been,
but then I read this: “As a rule, the Kidon kill team is comprised of four highly seasoned men: 1. Tracer 2. Transporter 3. Helper 4. Killer. The tracer spots the target. The transporter guides the assassination team to the target. The helper basically serves as the motorcycle driver who helps the killer and the killer is tasked with shooting the target or attaching magnetic bomb to the car of the victim”. (Inside Israel’s Secret Wars: Mossad’s Elite “Kidon Killers” By Dr. Ismail Salami) and the following:
Another ‘witness’ is being quoted. It’s a woman and her name is Catherine Jeanin. She is the wife of farmer Jeanin who has 70 cows. Their farm is further up (Col de Cherel) from where the Al-Hilli’s died. She is being quoted as saying: “My husband saw only a motorcycle. It came by several times. The rider even stopped to allow the cows to cross the road. He did not look like he was in a hurry.” (why would he be) So what if there have been two motorcycles, one going down to Chevaline and the other one took the Col de Cherel.
When you look at the left of the car in many different pictures, you can see tyremarks that don’t fit a racingbike but possibly a motorbike.
Tim V @6:46 PM
I really like your thinking about the coded references. Chevaline as a code name for an improved penetration technique for the Polaris british missiles, meant to defeat soviet ABM’s. And Compte d’Ire is evocative too.
I know of only one agency keen on secret codes that may be left as ‘calling cards” both to secure bragging rights and for preverse amusement. The agency that devised the Stuxnet had an obscure reference to Persia – one that those in the know would be likely to pick up – am pretty sure it was no coicidence. I don’t think we have seen much evidence that Sunnis would be fond of name – or number – games. Or any games. Ditto for [most] shia —
As to the Brits – yes, they could, but would they?
If you are on to something, then the tale-tale sign is a certain arrogance that disposes “them” to leave ‘calling cards” with a clever touch. Where there’s one, there will be more.
You seem to be an excellent analyst and a detector of patterns. So the next question is – what else on the scene – as it was found/described – could pass for calling card, with a hint of jest?
I don’t know the answer (yet) but have a feeling it is hidden in plain sight and we just are not inclined to see it because we don’t realize we’re playing a game of Where’s Waldo?
@ Thomas 2 Nov, 2012 – 11:40 am
“Political movements like LaRouche/EAP attracts mentally disturbed people, so an internal LaRouche-affair is not to be excluded as the cause for the killings.”
The cults that recruit on the street – LaRouchians, Moonies, Scientologists – certainly take advantage of the mentally disturbed and use them as free, slave labour. The ones who are not sufficiently mentally disturbed, well they are by the time the cult has finished with auditing, programming or whatever technique they use, usually involving confession (recorded) of sexual secrets.
With the LaRouchians apparently being mercenary spies, info to the highest bidder, it’s altogether likely somebody (SM?) was in the midst of double and double-double crosses.
@ kathy 2 Nov, 2012 – 12:59 pm
“@ NR “There was something I read that LaRouche didn’t want members to marry.”
“I have read also that having babies was considered a betrayal and Mollier had recently had a baby.”
A humorous aside – a Moonie defector reported that after an arranged marriage, the ritual on the wedding night and the next night, the woman was to be on top, representing the fallen Eve dominating Adam. On the third night and forever after, the man was to be on top, representing Adam’s rise and dominance of Eve.
The high level connections of the Hillis which Bluebird has uncovered, especially American ones, are tending to strengthen, for me anyway, the extraction hypothesis: assets being withdrawn. Of course Saddam was one of their boys, called in, using a double.
Incidentally, this large, uninteresting house bang opposite the Al-Hillis in Claygate is now for rent. I wonder who the last lessee was??
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/21288185
@Straw
I tend to think it is a deliberate cut in the Google street – the vehicle would be going very slowly up that passage. I don’t even know the address of the house. Was SM an asset too, assuming Saad was??
@TimV
Few accept the official line that WBM just “stumbled” on the scene. If he wasn’t there purely by chance, what WAS his role
Yes, this is the 64,000 Dinar question, Tim. I don’t think the BBC is too curious about it. Asset assurance?
@ NR
No wonder they defected!!! It is all control techniques isn’t it?
@ Q 2 Nov, 2012 – 3:45 pm
“@NR: Thanks for all that. Still reading. The incredibly good-looking guy obviously had some political intent re: packages sent. Montreal is such a hotbed for so many things. Now that I think of it, Airbus has a certain contact there (bundles of cash in brown paper envelopes). And so much more.”
Or “somebody” – a foreign power, the mafia – used him to make a political point on their behalf.
Montreal is also home to AVSEC (Aviation Security) at Concordia, which runs courses in the UAE. I think the CSIS ran the IOTC training course there, at least at one time. And the SABRE airlines reservation system is based in Vancouver.
“@NR: How about that incredibly expensive plane?”
As the Germans said, “We’re glad to be rid of him. There is much trouble in this case.”
“Former RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli once stated that criminal groups are focusing on Parliament, the courts and other institutions with the aim of “destabilizing” the political system. “While we would all agree that mistakes in business practice, questionable or unethical behavior, a lack of self-regulation or the failure of regulatory bodies to properly monitor, are all of serious concerns, by far the most frightening specter we face is that of corruption.”
bluebird
2 Nov, 2012 – 4:00 pm
In the interesting link you provided, there is an article written by a Farid Oufi, not Frederick al Oufi. Farid is indeed a very common name in Iraq and Syria but certainly not Frederick as it is a totally different etymology. Many Farids use the nickname Fred if they are living in the west but it is not short for Frederick. Maybe he had just anglicized his name.
@ Bluebird
Maybe he is not Christian? There are many Muslim al Oufis in Iraq and Saudia Arabia including some al Qaida!
@NR: A certain boss has returned to Mtl. First stop: his dentist. That story could get interesting.
Big corruption scandal going on, too.
There is some question whether the plane was the one flown by the former VIP pilot, who flew the Q. around (not moi).
Concordia is known to be interesting for many reasons.
SABRE: See who owns it, and how it is connected to this story. Satellites are a competitive business. Bigger isn’t better when it comes to price.
And how about the sale of various corporate entities and a 31-year trade agreement with the country of origin of incredibly good-looking man’s BF? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the packages…Nah.
IMO, whatever happened in the Combe d’Ire is part of a big picture beyond the borders of France and England, but also beyond the scope of this forum.
@Tim: I got it. Just saying that the property issues almost read like they were taken from that script. And the name.
Kathy. Frederick is the name, trust me. There were even Frederick alOufis already in 1890. Frederick is a popular name amongst the 800.000 chaldean Christians in Iraq.
Simply because of the popular Frederick II (Friedrich II) amongst the chaldean christians. They all changed tgeir names towards an Arab sounding, particularly in Iraq.
Muslims would never call their children in Iraq Frederick.
Tareq Aziz is alsi a constructed name. His real name is Michael Youhanna.
Nadhmi Auchi is in reality Nadim Owchi.
Please dont try teaching me genealogy …
By the way, Nadhmi Owchi (Auchi) lived in Weybridge (Surrey) opposite of the URC church.
@ Bluebird
“Muslims would never call their children in Iraq Frederick.”
That’s not what I said. I was arguing the case that the Arabic name, Farid, maybe was his name and then shortened to Fred as some Farids do in the west. Also, re the different spelling of Auchi, that could be due to phonetic spelling as there is no exact equivalent from Arabic to English so can be written several ways. So why did the link you provided to back up your claim that Frederick al Outhi was a Christian only lead to an article with a Farid Outhi in it? Not the same at all.
In the documents his name is Frederick Kamel alOufi. Check ancestry.com.
I am sure that there are many alOufis. One of them was a member of the 9/11 squad and anotherone organised bombings in iraq. Perhaps there is somewhere a Farid Oufi, too.
But that is not our Oufi. There is also a katie and a kathy girl here. Not the same girls, i assume.
What you are doing is simply a waste of time. Please submit something constructive or else verify the links i gave you. Check ancestry.com for frederick Oufi.
Bluebird
You were the one that provided the link to Farid Outhi on an Iraqi Christian website to back up your claim that your al Outhi was a Christian and the link you provided doesn’t back up that at all. I was just querying it on that basis.
It’s all a bit strange if you ask me but carry on with your excellent digging up more strangeness which I cannot hope to compete with!
I noticed that Nadhmi Awji (that’s how it is spelled in arabic) appears (unfortunately not in photo form) in a 1955 directory of Baghdad College.
http://www30.us.archive.org/stream/aliraqi1955bagh/aliraqi1955bagh_djvu.txt
Highly educated by American Jesuits.
Interesting that Muslims, Syrian Christians and Jews were educated together.
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_College}
Note some of the alumni, although a couple were not star pupils, rather they seemed to run the school themselves….
I found that quite wiki entry quite fascinating.
@Bluebird
Did you see an Al-Hilli listed in a 1930s Berliner Addressbuch? I’ll dig out the online ref. Just out of interest.
Harold Wilson’s confidante, Marcia Falkender was a co-director of Awji’s GMH – until 2008.
{https://www.duedil.com/company/02618212/general-mediterranean-holding-uk-limited}
{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Falkender,_Baroness_Falkender}
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/MPs_in_uproar_after_attack_on_WikiLeaks
@Felix
Here is his Baghdad College photo, class 3c.
http://archive.org/stream/aliraqi1955bagh#page/n37/mode/2up
Yup Marlin 2 Nov, 2012 – 9:32 pm I think you have knocked the nail on the head. An Israeli/Jewish trait I would say. Your suggestion of other little “markers” or “call signs” is also intriguing. Just as it is well known that murderers often revisit the scene of the crime, so assassination teams must bury their guilt in a sense of achievement and a greater good. It is not for the clever, just doing a job, but pulling it off in style – style in this context finding the target, doing the deed and swiftly escaping without trace. Regarding your suggestion I noticed at least two prominent signs at the crime scene. One appears to state “the end of the forestry road” or something similar. has anyone been able/taken the trouble to translate these signs from the French?
Family passports were apparently on the driver’s floor well rather than in the glove pocket which I thought strange but can’t quite think of a reason why.
I think of Psalm 121.1 “I lift my eyes to the hills; from whence cometh my help for which the Barnes commentary adds “the expression would properly denote a condition where there was danger; when no help or aid was visible; and when the eyes were turned to the quarter from which help might be expected to come. What the danger was cannot now be ascertained.” Possibly. It fits.
Then there are the strange black markings on the road from the air which almost have the appearance of a large torso, but I think this is just being fanciful.
Staying on an Old Testament theme I looked up 5.9.12 i.e. Deuteronomy Chapter 9 v. 12 and got this, referring to Moses and the twelve commandments on Sinai:
12 And the Lord said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.
Continuing …
14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
15 So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16 And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17 And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.
18 And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also.
21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
I am not claiming I have it but there are some interesting parallels here. “Coming down from the mountain”; “looking back on fire” (fire engines first to arrive as it happens!); references to “molten calf” as in metal (Areva?); “two tablets” (computers or two targets?); even a sacrificial calf and throwing ground dust in the brook “that descended out of the mount”. Does the report of the very unusual death of a cow locally below tie in? Nothing is too strange in this case.
Rox
2 Nov, 2012 – 9:19 pm Your comments on the Kidon methodology is very relevant I think. We have a motorbike witness and press reference on the 7th Sept. to motor bike tracks at the site, we have what appear to be 4 wheel drive tracks at the other end of the lay-by, we have a lone motorist driving away at high speed at about the right time. That could be your four man Kidon team couldn’t it?
Then there is the strange case of the dead cow with the single bullet wound to its head later discovered. The machine translation is as follows:
“A breeder sector Albanians between Savoie and Haute-Savoie, had lost track of a cow since the morning of August 12. She had fled her Mognard park and despite the research could not be found. It was learned yesterday, are the hunters who found Sunday in a ditch along Highway Aix-Annecy. Amazement: the body had a hole in the forehead, hit a ball. The findings of gendarmerie and veterinary services have cleared the hunters: the Charolais, in a state of decomposition, was killed before the opening of hunting and a shotgun, not a rifle. The police begin an investigation as soon as the owner has filed its complaint.” Could this have been a test shot? Will the police compare it forensically I wonder?
Or just maybe the late hour has turned my brain ….
I have just thought about the “plastic from a gun” found at the crime scene. Could it have been not from a gun (what plastic bits are there on guns particularly 70 year old Lugers?) but from a mobile phone or comptor or other bit of high tech kit as per “17 And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.” Just wondering?
Some Lugers were made or retro-fitted with Bakelite hand grips. It’s possible a bit broke off when the killer was trying to stove Zainib’s head in with it.
@Kathy
thanks for finding that…I didn’t see any phots.
He’s second in from the left in the back row of 3C class.
@Bluebird
I’m forgetting that Zaid Alabdi used to practice at 9 Putney Hill SW15.
Felix wrote:
It was the older generation which was into politics, in Iraq, before</strong< the upheaval that took place the Saddam years. The younger generation are living normal lives away from politics, just like, I gather, Harold Wilson or Edward Heath's nephews are — although they could conceivably be into British politics. But as the years go by, its a little difficult for expats to be into Iraqie politics, also because the Iraqies are sceptical about outsiders — who have lived comfortable lives away from sanctions and hardship — coming and wanting to run things.
———–
The Edge
Latest layout of the transcribed interview and
family link between Hashim and Saad awaiting
confirmation plus maps of possible access/escape
routes of the murderer(s).
Felix wrote:
It was the older generation which was into politics, in Iraq, before the upheaval that took place the Saddam years. The younger generation are living normal lives away from politics, just like, I gather, Harold Wilson or Edward Heath’s nephews are — although they could conceivably be into British politics. But as the years go by, its a little difficult for expats to be into Iraqie politics, also because the Iraqies are sceptical about outsiders — who have lived comfortable lives away from sanctions and hardship — coming and wanting to run things.
———–
The Edge
Latest layout of the transcribed interview and
family link between Hashim and Saad awaiting
confirmation plus maps showing possible access/escape routes taken by th killer(s).
Felix and Bluebird are exagerating the sophistication and influence of the CIA or any other American Intelligence [a contradiction in terms] organisation. Even in 1938-41 it is doubtful what useful knowledge they could have gained from Mr. Hashim al-Hilli, supposing he was a OSS asset at that time. The US was neutral and its intelligence gathering capabilities amateurish.
Hashim and friends presumably were in America in order to get help of getting rid of the British, but all in all I wouldn’t put to much emphasis of such an old link, as it is all together unsure what it has got to do with today’s case (the killings)
———–
The Edge
Latest layout of the transcribed interview and
family link between Hashim and Saad awaiting
confirmation plus maps showing possible access/
escape routes used by the killer(s).
Kathy great find that photo !
Funnily enough his past is easy to find, but have you or BB any idea how we can find his parents ?
For all the mans web scrubbing & suing there’s still much to find on the man,his links are global.
This is how he looks now.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.fr/2008/08/is-nadhimi-auchi-skeleton-in-senator.html
“29 Feb 1960 Foreign Service Dispatch from the US Embassy in Baghdad to the US Department of State, six scanned pages, declassified.
The document reports the terms of imprisonment and other sentences, imposed as a result of the 7 Oct 1959 Baath party assassination plot against the then Iraqi Prime Minister, Abdul al-Karim Qassim.
Notable figures sentenced include Saddam Hussien (“Saddam Husayn al-Tikriti”, Trial Group I) and the British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was sentenced to three years “rigorous imprisonment” (“Nadhmi Shakir Awji”, Trial Group IV).”
Note the spelling of his name.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Embassy_Baghdad:_Nadhmi_Auchi_and_others_sentenced_at_Qassim_assassination_trial,_29_Feb_1960
Felix 10.11 pm
Great work re the rental opposite 26 Oaken Lane
Now we know why the hedge was so diligently cut when the rest of the garden was a mess. So all of the house could be observed from upstairs opposite. My guess is once they stopped using a neighbours drive they moved inside the rental opposite. Duration of those occupiers would be just as interesting too.
Yes I do still believe in the extraction of the Al-Hillis but do wonder of the Americans were running the show especially from the family history that BB is uncovering. Just why is the American based Scotland Yard blog showing so much interest in this story when it hasnt even covered any other story all year. They have prevented seeing 2012 previous blog entries now. Why has the press in USA barely covered this story and yet this blog has. Often this blog reported before any newspaper did so either has its own investigators in France or inside the British press.