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?
@ Ferret 2 Oct, 2012 – 2:18 pm
To be fair I have seen some (Daily mail &/or Daily Telegraph, and a Scottish paper and possibly the Independent) round-up pieces that offer a number of possible reasons for the murders including security/Mossad involvement. And the BBC radio report also mentioned the possibility?
@ CD 2 Oct, 2012 – 2:06 pm
So we look for intention because we tend to assume the consequences were intended. But, obviously, the consequences were not intended (or foreseen) by all the actors on the day. Even those responsible for the murders (that is those present and distant) may not have intended that four people would die. And if that was not what they intended then what did they intend? One death? Two deaths? Five deaths? Abductions? Arrests?
That is a very good point indeed. I am rather surprised that nobody here seems to have wondered whether or not SAH and/or SM might have been armed. (I know that we haven’t been told anything of the sort, but that does not prima facie rule out the possibility, does it?) If, for example, SAH had suddenly pulled a gun at what was supposed to be a clandestine meet, that could well explain why his contact lost the plot and killed everybody in sight (particularly so as the adult victims would have been able to describe him).
@Dave
Thanks for that.
The more you attempt to deflect the conversation, the more certain I become that there’s something to look for.
😀
So please, someone, anyone genuine out there, converse with me about AWE Aldermaston. Ask questions, discuss it. Say what we don’t know. Anything. Just to keep the ball rolling.
I think it’s the last unturned stone in “our” investigation…
And I think there’s something to find… otherwise “Dave” wouldn’t bother to try and keep changing the subject every time I bring it up…
So… anyone?
@CD
To be fair I have seen some (Daily mail &/or Daily Telegraph, and a Scottish paper and possibly the Independent) round-up pieces that offer a number of possible reasons for the murders including security/Mossad involvement. And the BBC radio report also mentioned the possibility?
The ones I have seen (including the BBC radio programme) have all been either direct quotes from Gary Aked, with none of the usual follow-up speculation which could be expected, or disparaging reportage of what “conspiracy theorists” are up to on the internet, again with no discussion or speculation.
They have actually used cloned passports of visa applicants and tourists, thereby endangering the lives of blameless citizens of other states.
I have investigated this issue in some depth, because, for the Dubai hit, they used a genuine german passport that they obtained by presenting forged papers. The guy who obtained that passport has been caught (and let go).
For the most part, though, they use passports of immgrants into Israel who have *willingly* consented to have their IDs used “for purposes of national security.” The ID donors probably did not expect to have their names involved in an assassination, but they are far from innocent.
Not yet sayonara from the sayanims here, must still be some vile stench of Mossad in the air ! But at least Satanyahu did not accuse the Iranians of the hit on the UN podium.
Aldermaston…
I think the first question you’d have to ask is
how open is the UK defence/nuclear establishment to scientists of foreign extraction? Especially ones from the Arab world?
What links, if any, are there between Kingston University (where Saad studied) and the defence/nuclear establishment? Scholarships? Work experience? Joint Research funding?
We know Saad was 11 in 1971 when he arrived in the UK. So, at a guess he went to college in 1979/1980. Do we know to what level he was qualified – BSc/Msc/BEng/Phd?
Do we know what precisely he studied and, particularly, whether his expertise was theoretical or mechanical. I think it was more likely the latter – the design and building of machinery and equipment. In other words he was probably a physical solutions man rather than a new theory man.
While all your thereies (katie, Brooker, sorensen, james and even anders) could be possible and have a certain likelyhood, you do all make an intriguing error in searching Saad al Hilli as a person who did act on his own. That will lead to nothing.
The Al-Hilli family was (amongst other UK based Arab families) an important part of the so called “London Group”. I don’t want to repeat my long eassay and my links that were posted today and you can read those a little bit further up if you wish.
However, he was – like his family – just a corporarte within the so called “London Group” who worked and acted like they ordered him to act for the group.I’m giving you an example: In case an accounted of a mafia clan is being shot dead (either by his own people or else by a rival mafia clan) then you won’t search about what he was doing, working, thinking, etc.
You’ll first try to research what his mafia clan was doing and what the enemies of his mafia clan would have thought about him and about his work. You’ll only then research the agenda of the killed person who is a member of a group, when you beleive that he was killed by his own group. Then you begin to ask about “what did he do wrong”?
Everything what he did or what he had planned to do, he didn’t do on his own agenda but as a representative of the so called “London Group”. Perhaps he did try to do (or not to do) something waht would have been negative for the London Group. There could be a reason. However, he could have done something for the London Group what theier enemies didn’t like that it would happen. Those are the two scenarios where all your theories and speculations can get found. All of you could be right or wrong, but please stop to put him into our Western/Christian thinking about the own interests of individuals and about the importance of our own will regarding our acting in life.
However, those people we are talking about here, they still do act for their families and for their own tribes and for their religion/belief in the very first place, but certainly they would act in the very last place only about what they would like to have or to do for themselves.
@CD
Aldermaston…
I thank you for that.
😀
I think the first question you’d have to ask is
how open is the UK defence/nuclear establishment to scientists of foreign extraction? Especially ones from the Arab world?
Well, SAH worked at RAL… we do know that much. We don’t know what he worked on, or if he needed or got clearance for that, or anything.
Gary Aked said point blank that SAH wouldn’t have got it because of his Iraqi background but frankly I find that a bit unbelievable… surely it would depend on the particular person? SAH has been linked with MI6 and persuading Iraqi tank commanders to surrender so presumably he would have needed clearance for that.
And, SAH worked for SSTL, and they do defence contracts (although he could have worked solely on civilian projects).
What links, if any, are there between Kingston University (where Saad studied) and the defence/nuclear establishment? Scholarships? Work experience? Joint Research funding?
Now that’s a good question… clearly they place students at RAL for work experience in the summers…
@Ferret
2 Oct, 2012 – 1:53 pm
Of course the other can of worms no-one seems too interested in looking into is the possible LaRouche connection ..
Sylvain Mollier was associated with Solidarité et Progrès 73 in Ugine.
Its Swedish counterpart Europeiska Arbetarpartiet was fingered, evidently wrongly, for the assassination of Olof Palme but it is often insinuated that it was set up by the CIA. What is the nationality of its current chairman Hussein Askary, who has written on Middle Easten affairs in LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review? For example this:
http://www.larouche.se/artikel/hussein-askary-on-the-background-of-the-conflicts-in-sudan
“@Dave
Thanks for that.
The more you attempt to deflect the conversation, the more certain I become that there’s something to look for.”
But we know 2 of the 3 parties involved.
Al-hilli was one.
Mollier was the other.
It’s quite clear that the 2 of them were in midst of a clandestine meeting when an other party targetted them.
Now Al-hilli had an Iranian wife and had visited Iran recently, he also had spent time in Dubai which is Iran’s main import base.
Mollier worked for a company that refined zirconium.
Iran uses zirconium as a key part of it’s nuclear programme.
Note the lack of anyone from Aldermaston present on the day.
Why try and link this to something that it clearly has nothing to do with?
CD, Bluebird and Peter have made some of the best points in days imo
I said it in the last thread, and here it is again. Someone once said that anyone can build a nuclear reactor, but the devil is in the materials science.
That is where metallurgists and others come in, studying the alloys, etc. The beamline at a facility like Rutherford Appleton is a valuable tool for sorting out exactly where things can and do go wrong.
Here’s an example of security clearance procedures at another facility outside the UK. Procedures may have changed since 9/11.
http://www.cins.ca/beam.html#visit
In the case of a student obtaining free beamtime, the results must be made public. Only paid beamtime results can remain confidential.
Here’s a similar page for Rutherford Appleton:
http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/apply-for-beamtime/apply-for-beamtime2117.html
I agree with you Bilbo, they have been rather good today whereas Anders and I are good every day. [now you also know where the English tendency to brag come from .-) ]
@Dave
Note the lack of anyone from Aldermaston present on the day.
What I note, once again, your seeming certainty that SAH was not from Aldermaston. May I ask, how would you know if SAH had ever worked there, or not? Are you from Aldermaston? Did you work there? Do you have access to a list of people that have ever worked there?
If not, why are you not curious? Any genuine researcher would surely be very interested in any info on his nuclear weapons research, it could be key to the whole shebang.
Why try and link this to something that it clearly has nothing to do with?
Ha ha, of couse, I am not. What I *am* looking for is links between SAH and nuclear weapons research, as hinted at by the D Notice, as mentioned in my long post not very long ago.
@Trowbrige
Were you at the Mollier “funeral”?? All very normal there, then.
And what about those empty clear glass sided funeral vehicles which were well photographed going up the Combe d’Ire? Did we see them coming down?
Was Simon Cox really doing digging for the BBC?? Doesn’t look like it from the programme, which was a modified reiteration of the official narrative. Seems like he put it together v quickly if that exchange with the mysterious Ayob was on 24 Sept.
I can’t speak for security procedures at Rutherford Appleton, but it seems ludicrous to say that all people of a certain nationality would be precluded from working there on that basis alone. Consider also that Saad al-Hilli would have met different screening procedures in the 1980s.
Research scientists from all over the world work in such places because of their expertise. Country of origin does not mean that the individual is rejected.
http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/news/cnbc/2009/01/19/mysteries-superconductivity.html
BTW
where are the Al-Hilli bodies? Not forgetting granny – has the last name been repatriated to Sweden?
BTW where are the Al-Hilli bodies? Not forgetting granny – has the last name been repatriated to Sweden?
Interesting questions. Grandmother has nephews in Sweden (Yassar and Hasan al-Saffar) but surviving son (with severe mental health issues) and daughter (Pharmacy Phd, Reading) are believed to be in the UK.
Thanks Q, that’s an excellent example.
So Dr Yamani came over from Iran to Canada *as an adult* (not as a minor like SAH).
Despite her IRANIAN origin, she works at the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre (NRC-CNBC) in Chalk River, Ontario.
Is the NRC-CNBC a similar kind of facility to RAL in that researchers wouldn’t necessarily need security clearance to work there?
And that’s an excellent point about different security procedures being in place in the 1980’s, I hadn’t thought of that. Why would being an Iraqi have been a problem, security-clearance-wise in the 1980’s? They were not considered a threat to the UK at that point, were they?
“What I note, once again, your seeming certainty that SAH was not from Aldermaston. May I ask, how would you know if SAH had ever worked there, or not? Are you from Aldermaston? Did you work there? Do you have access to a list of people that have ever worked there?”
But he was meeting someone from Cezus?
What are the chances of an Iraqi with links to Iran, a Frenchman who worked for a company which supplies the nuclear industry and a mossad hit team all by chance meeting up a mountian?
Remind me again where the AWE fits into what happened?
I think that the no mention of nuclear research in an alleged DN was to prevent any investigation which could lead to SAH’s attempts to protect Iran’s nuclear research, and its development.
As for the chilling effect of telling editors to avoid these concerns, as a one-time reporter, I can attest to it.
It means that you will not be paid for so doing, it will not be published by the paper, and you will be considered a rogue employee for attempting it.
I was obliged to resign by a newpaper in Raleigh, N. C. when its editors refused further investigation of how the bondsmen used the county’s sheriff deputies to force loans out of the city’s mainly black garbage-collection employees with outrageous interest, and bad checks as collateral if they didn’t pay up – what would result in their being imprisoned for six months.
If the editors don’t authorize work, you don’t touch it,
Ferret, I think the implication earlier in these threads was that Saddam’s assassins had a free pass in the UK at one time – viz attempt on Allawi who, it’s speculated, was previously a student agent provocateur in London for the Ba’athist regime.
It’s still a jump from student placement at RAL (mid 80s) to working in Aldermaston (80s-90s). And Aldermaston was very much a centre of cold war nuclear spookery.
@Olifant
incroyable hasard was discussed at Icke – translated as by unbelieveable coincidence – like all the other unbelievable coincidences here…
I think that this “security clearance” thing is crazy !
I doubt “they” go “He’s from Iraq, thanks Prof but you can’t work here”.
Infact most “spies” come with the highest clearance possible…so it’s not worked than !
And I am interested in Sa’ad’s previous work…as I can’t find it anywhere.
Where was he as a PAYE employee ?
Where did he go “low level” contracting in the U.K. ?
What was his work life like “outside” the U.K. ?
There isn’t anything about this guy….only he worked at SSTL from November 2010 !!!
And another thing that bothers me.
He went to Iran. He’s an “engineer”. (planes, nukes, satellites whatever).
But he didn’t get picked up by the Iranians ????
Not on any level did they look at this Shia, ex Iraqi on a British passport !
Remind me again where the AWE fits into what happened?
Well seeing as you asked so nicely!
🙂
What I am saying is that it is possible SAH worked at Aldermaston (AWE) in nuclear weapons research.
You have expressed certainty that he didn’t, on more than one occasion.
I am asking for proof of your assertion.
Do you have it?
Or is it just bluster?
@CD
It’s still a jump from student placement at RAL (mid 80s) to working in Aldermaston (80s-90s). And Aldermaston was very much a centre of cold war nuclear spookery.
I agree, it’s a jump.
But definitely a possibility.
Except for spooky Dave, of course.
😀
I suspect RAL & AWE do a good deal of shared projects, too…
@Ferret:
I posted previously (3:19 pm) with a link to the application for beamtime security procedures for the Neutron Beam Centre, and a similar page for Rutherford Appleton. Still awaiting moderation. Maybe you can look these up in the meantime for reference. Use “Apply for Beamtime” Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering, and “Apply Online for Beam Time” ISIS Science and Technology Facilities Council.
“Sitec are currently looking to recruit an Engineering Manager for a nuclear MoD establishment based in Reading. The position is for an estimated 12 month contract and is paying circa £50.00 – £60.00… on an hourly basis. Engineering Manager Location – Reading Rate – Up to £60.00per hour D.O.E Successful applicants will be required to be Security Cleared prior to appointment”
That’s an idea of the rates then !