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
I can’t find any evidence that they were married.Why would there be a re-registration of the birth? Perhaps to add the father’s name?
See also:
SEAN SONELL W H HILLI
Birth Year 1984 Event Quarter 4
Is this the mother perhaps…
[http://www2.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?r=209695427&d=bmd_1373527565]
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198777/French-Alps-shooting-Police-question-Saad-Al-Hillis-brother-Zaid-inheritance-row.html]
Last night Zaid Al-Hilli’s brother-in-law, Damien O’Reilly, said: ‘There’s no way he is involved.’
Mr O’Reilly, 41, whose sister Geraldine was married to Zaid until her death from ovarian cancer, said: ‘Zaid is the last person who could be behind this.
‘He’s a very decent bloke. When my sister was dying from cancer he was hugely supportive and caring. He was devastated by her death and is still coming to terms with it.’
Zaid and Geraldine had one child, Sean O’Reilly-Hilli, 28, a plumber who lives in the Walton-on-Thames house.
[http://www.192.com/atoz/people/o%27reilly/damien/kt12/3379024221/]
How old was Geraldine when she died?
Wrt the triangular plot, it sounds neat, perhaps a litte too neat – like a Gerge Clooney film. Reality often is messier, less efficient. Nonetheless, Israel still seems the most likely, but with French and probably British approval.
And the thing about marrying a decesaed brother’s wife, sort Henry VIII-style, in educated middle class families that hardly ever happens nowadays and esp. not, one imagines, with someone named, ‘Geraldine’. I’ve never met anyone who has married their dead brother’s wife. You may be right, but I sense you’re barking up the wrong tree with that one. You may wish to contact him via Facebook or Twitter or Linked In or similar, though whether he’ll answer, or thank you for it, is another matter.
“… the Arab Royals (except for the bribed al Saud clan) were always supporters of the Ottoman interests and the old NAZI germany.” Bluebird.
On the contrary, the ‘Arab Royals’ were usually British stooges, as they all been made ‘Royal’ by Britain. King Farouk of Egypt, the Hashemite kings of Iraq and Jordan, the Saudis (as you rightly state) and the potentates of the emirates Persian Gulf – a created and sustained by the British Empire. The Ottomans were the enemies of those who later became Arab Royals and were WW1 allies of Imperial Germany. But for some time before the unification and then rise of Germany as an industrial and naval power, the Ottoman Empire, the ‘Sick Man of Europe’, was kept afloat by the British and French as a bulwark against Imperial Russia (Crimean War, etc.). There were regimes and powerful people that imported ideology from Nazi Germany in the 1940s, eg. Iraq, the Mufti of Jersusalem, etc.
Felix
There are at leadt 10 geraldine o’reilly identities born between 1950 and 1965.
Without having more information it is sheer impossible to find the correct one. If i just knew who Damian is, because there are plenty of Damian O’Reillys too.
Perhaps his age of 2012 might be a hint. If i catch him, itll be easier to catch the correct geraldine, too.
She married Zaid in 1992 but Sean was born in 1984
There are 8 years difference.
However, what doesnt fit at all is Sean’s name and the initials W H for first name of father and first name of grandfather. Neither letter has got anything to do with Zaid. Except for when Zaid isnt Zaid but somebody else who changed his name to Zaid shortly before his 1992 wedding….
@Bluebird
I am fairly confident about the bro-in-law. Geraldine also doesn’t seem to have a second or third first name, which narrows it down a lot.
Not sure about this connection:
http://www.companydirectorcheck.com/damien-o-reilly-8
not at this address any more, but it was a long time ago. Company records are a bit variable on people’s full names.
I’ll find out more next week.
PS…
https://www.duedil.com/company/03131381/carriage-ltd/people
https://www.duedil.com/company/03388670/pta-computing-ltd/people
might be a red herring.
Geraldine might have been born in Ireland in any case.
Felix
Due to the age (41), Damian should be Damian Paul O’Reilly.
Searching for Geraldine P O’Reilly pushes me into at least 15 possible Geraldine P O’Reilly born between 1955 and 1965.
No chance. We must know where she was born.
There are Geraldines in Australia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK and in the USA.
Damian P was born in Chelsea, but he must be at least 10-20 years younger than Geraldine.
Bluebird, I am glad you are looking into that mysterious 8 year difference and am sure you are onto something about sean and zaid’s names not matching up.
The comment you made just now about ‘Zaid isnt Zaid but somebody else who changed his name to Zaid shortly before his 1992 wedding” made me think again about the suggestion that the Zaid we know as “the accountant” – with those 1 or 2 grainy pictures – is a “sleeper”. And possibly so was Saad. Identities either made up or adapted – strongly suggesting Mi6 – but not necessarily or not the only agency responsible.
Only you could have found the dead give-away of the wrong initials.
And khadim being a “hajj Sheikh” is just astounding. What with two sons who appear to be thoroughly secularized and ever so not muslim scholarly.
We don’t know what’s going on and there may be innocent explanations. But something is off for sure about that family. The pieces somehow refuse to fit together.
Or, as Tim V aptly metaphorized earlier – we are only dimly aware of shadows moving about interspersed by occasional slivers of lights emanating from the room, outside which we stand, pondering truths we were not meant to know.
I think this family stuff is all very interesting, but is unlikely to lead anywhere significant. The satellite material and pursuing Mollier-related information is more likely to be relevant. But who knows…? We are dancing around in the darkness. What is reqd is an insider.
Felix
Interesting
A company for exactly one year.
One project?
So then lets search for michael o’reilly, too.
Born probably about 1961.
One more comment in passing (warning – this is about Blog Dynamics (super-meta!) again – those uninterested please skip….no feelings hurt here – it’s just a hobby, really):
i just peeked over at the goings on in the “other blog’ and am astounded at how the tracks of speculations have diverged between the two. To be fair, MZT is trying to keep the focus on Chevaline murder scene more than we do here (having gone over it 50 times over we may be showing some understandable signs of “crime scene fatigue” what with virtually no new data or facts). thaey do engage insome interesting excursions to other murders in France, but generally, staying local to france with a bit about UK where directly relevant (eg speculation about Nigerian John etc). By contrast, this blog keeps drawing widening circles highlighting far reaching geopolitics with speculations about motives drawing on those geopolitical aspects. just look at the variety of scenarios offered by people above in response to Syhayl’s question (and I know I still awe mine…). generally however, everyone is pretty much on board with one or more state agencies playing a role in the murders – with or without criminal aspects added in for good measure (Katie’s is not uninteresting BTW – she made some interesting comments. i think people should respond – i was going to also but later). on MZT, it is the relative weights given to the various players that’s different. With some “local” player”s) as dominant theme, and possible agency (mostly french) possibly engaged in some kind of cover-up – though again mostly for “local reasons”.
Interestingly, here on CM, people wouldn’t mind at all visits from the illustrious commenters of MZT including speculations on “local” motives. At least I didn’t think anyone would mind – the more the merrier. And we should definitely explore more the french crime history as one more angle (well, Bluebird does – through the “Metal Workers Union” – another interesting angle, if a rather speculative one). But over at MZT there seems to be a cordoning off specifically targeting individuals known to comment on this blog. Not so much by the commenting crowds but by the blog owner(s). Attributions of “mockery” are used most often as a means to exclude, sometimes suggestively sometimes overtly (as in outright banning). Whether there was any such mockery or not. I saw that tool employed back in the march blog (forget which part that was) to sort of give NR a veiled warning that he/she had to choose – one or the other. Shortly thereafter NR disappeared from among us (and is still much missed!) with but the rare foray into MZT-land. Only Mochyn69 – a most temperate and circumspect commenter is still permitted to visit there, even though he sometimes blesses us with his astute comments as well (always welcome). Oh yes, there’s James too – lately not in evidence on MZT but that’s a special case.
Anyways this comment is meant just as a general statement about the interesting local/global bifurcation that’s taken place over the two blogs still actively going about Chevaline, running up on the 1 year mark. May be it’s just as well I was thinking the other day – it’s actually hard to mix up everything all at once. Also, in all fairness, once the possibility of more “agencies” is opened up well, the conversations, by definition, will take on a different tone. Personally, I am glad there is MZT doing their thing nearly independent of us here at CM. It will take more than one circle to ever converge on anything resembling ‘truth” about Chevaline. That much is clear.
Meta Interlude over.
Marlin, sorry for my ignorance. What’s ‘MZT’? It sounds like a new hallucinogen!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MZT
🙂
Saad’s grandfather was one of the most prominent religious shia scholars of all times.
Grand Ayatollah Shaeikh Hussein al Hilli
http://english.alhakeem.com/pages/book.php?bcc=172&itg=1&bi=156&s=ct
The teacher of jurists and Mujtahids, the Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Hussein al Hilli (may Allah have mercy on his soul) where he attended his studies in the sciences of religious jurisprudence and the fundamentals of jurisprudence.
The late Shia religious authority, the Grand Ayatollah, Al-Sayyid Al-Khoi (may Allah have mercy on his soul), in whose classes of the fundamentals of jurisprudence he attended for two years.
http://imamshirazi.com/ijtihaad.html
Ayatollah Sheikh Hassan Sa’eed, one of the prominent scholars of Tehran , one of the students of Ayatollah al-Udhma Sheikh Hussain al-Hilli (may Allah bless his soul), who also pronounced Sheikh Hassan’s licence.
“What’s ‘MZT’?”
http://www.marilynztomlins.com/
Marlin @ 9 Aug, 2013 – 9:24 pm
“A local crime for local people”, sounds like something that belongs in Royston Vasey 🙂
Sean O’Reilly http://www.checkatrade.com/PHSPlumbingandHeatingServices/Report.aspx
bit of a long shot but i dont suppose Zaid had an alter ego as “Waleed”?
Yea silly I know.
Saad’s grandfather was a Grand Ayatollah! There are only about 20-30 grand ayatollahs within one century. He was therefore one of the most prominent shia clerics of his time, comparable with grand Ayatollah Khomeini.
Grand Ayatollahs have a lot of political influence in Islam. They can speak Fatwas and they interprete the law.
The quote and link below is regarding another Grand Ayatollah who was a student of Saad’s grandfather whom he adores in his biography. Did they both think similar?
And then the quote regarding the frozen accounts ….
Did we ever consider the possibility of the said money in switzerland having been frozen by e.g. the USA?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/world/middleeast/05fadlallah.html?_r=0
Ayatollah Fadlallah was often mistakenly identified by Western governments as the spiritual guide of Hezbollah, the militant Islamist organization that was founded in 1982 with Iranian help and that spearheaded a violent campaign against Western and Israeli targets in Lebanon.
But his relationship with Hezbollah was much more complicated and far-reaching. He never considered himself to have any authority over the group and denied any operational links to it.
Western intelligence services, however, held the ayatollah responsible for attacks against Western targets, including the 1983 bombings of two barracks in Beirut in which 241 United States Marines and 58 French paratroopers were killed.The C.I.A. is thought to have carried out an assassination attempt against the ayatollah in 1985, in which a 440-pound car bomb was placed along the short route between his apartment and mosque. Ayatollah Fadlallah narrowly escaped the explosion, but 80 other people were killed.The administration of President Bill Clinton froze the ayatollah’s assets in 1995 because of his suspected involvement with terrorists. And in 2006, Israel bombed his house in south Beirut, but he was not there at the time.
Tim
Something stinks with Sean’s name initials. We know that the name isnt correct. We just dont know why.
Waleed is one possibility but i am sure that there are more arab names starting with the first letter “W”.
Given my previous post, perhaps we should consider the below reports from 2011 !!
This is a lot of frozen money in switzerland.
http://flarenetwork.org/learn/middle_east/article/swiss_investigate_syrians_libyans_over_money_laundering.htm
http://m.albawaba.com/main-headlines/syria-assets-frozen-switzerland-money-smuggled-lebanon-382118
Switzerland has frozen 50 million Swiss francs ($53 million) of funds belonging to Assad and other top officials. Last year, Swiss prosecutors froze roughly 3 million euros held in a Geneva bank by Hafez Makhlouf, a cousin of Assad, on grounds of suspected money-laundering
Follow the money!
That is always the best method to investigate crimes.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/1478/saddams-money-in-france-and-in-american-publishing
In an article that appeared last month (Dec. 21) in the daily Le Figaro, French journalist George Malbrunot reports that the French government is continuing to resist Iraqi efforts to recover the financial assets of Saddam Hussein in France. According to Malbrunot’s report, some €23.48 million of Saddam’s money remains blocked in French banks. (The original report placed the money in the Banque de France: a claim that has since been denied by the French national bank.) France would thus be in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 of May 22, 2003, which requires that the financial assets of the deposed Iraqi dictator held in foreign accounts be “immediately” transferred to a Development Fund for Iraq under the control of the Iraqi Central Bank. “France is one of the last countries in the world not to have done so,” notes an unnamed Iraqi diplomat cited by Le Figaro, who accuses former French President Jacques Chirac of “bad faith” in the matter. A villa valued at some €12 million near the French resort of Cannes, on the other hand, was recently turned over to Iraq — though only thanks to the intervention of the Swiss government, which seized the title from a Swiss trust in whose name it was being held.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46160875
The British and American coalition which had overthrown Saddam Hussein was given a very special responsibility by the United Nations. It was given trusteeship of more than 20 billion dollars that belonged to the people of Iraq. Over the next 40 months, it spent almost all of it. Yet, no one can account for where it all went. Literally billion of dollars have gone missing.In this revealing documentary, Dr. Ali Fadhil, a young Iraqi doctor, sets out to learn what has led to the catastrophic results when money was put into the care of the U.S. led coalition. What emerges is a disturbing tale of corruption and fraud. As word spread of the kind of money that could be made in Iraq, foreign contractors negotiated deals fast and furiously.There was no oversight of projects. “As trustees, we did a very poor job,” admits Frank Willis, a senior member of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). “We should have spent the money on the Iraqi people, rather than putting it in the pockets of foreign business.” According to the United States’ own figures, Iraq’s essential services are worse than before the war, with the country producing less electricity, oil or clean water.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dispatches-iraqs-missing-billions/
http://dinarvets.com/forums/index.php?/topic/157165-iraqi-defense-behind-seeking-information-about-their-funds-frozen-abroad/
Follow the money, part 2
Apart from the villa in Cannes and the assets frozen at the Banque de France, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein held shares in French companies via offshore corporations, based, notably, in Switzerland and Panama. One of these front corporations, Montana Management, held 8.4 percent of [the French publishing house] Hachette and 2.5 percent of [the French aeronautics and defense firm] Matra, prior to their fusion in Lagardère. The value of these shares is today estimated to be around €200 million. The former owner, Khalaf al-Dulaymi, a former Baath Party official close to Saddam Hussein, is supposed to have taken refuge in Jordan. . . . . Iraqi lawyers have demanded the seizure of the property of Dulaymi, who also possessed another front corporation named Midco, but Dulaymi has opposed the move.
Aérospatiale Matra was one of the founding members of the Franco-German aeronautics and defense consortium EADS, some 7.5 percent of whose shares continue to be controlled by Matra’s parent company, the Groupe Lagardère.
Follow the money, part 3.
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/js1331.aspx
There are a LOT of companies and names you might want to look at closer in the link above.
Some time ago i also saw “al huda” company in relation to al hilli or al saffar/allaf in dubai. I cannot remember how and why i saw this but unfortunately i gave it no significance and did not save a link:
Al-Huda served as a commercial front for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, an agency of the former Iraqi regime. Al-Huda, which held a monopoly over the provision, transportation and other tourism services to Iranian pilgrims visiting the Shi’ite shrines in Iraq, skimmed lucrative amounts off tour packages and directed the funds to the regime’s coffers. Estimates show this skimming racked up as much as $500 million each year for the regime.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/khalaf_muhammad_mukhlif_al-dulaymi.htm
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/04/us_sanctions_two_eur.php
Follow the money, part 4
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_Management
Montana Management is a trust fund once owned by Saddam Hussein. It has a 2% holding in the Lagardère Group; however all its holdings are frozen.Not coincidentally, “Montana Management, Inc.” was also the name of a money-laundering front company controlled by fictional drug lord Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in the 1983 film Scarface. Hussein, and his sons Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, were allegedly big fans of the cult classic.
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=002-1605
HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAQ 1968-1988.
AL-HILLI, Dr. Walid.
Bookseller: Any Amount of Books ABA
(LONDON (56 Charing Cross Road), ., United Kingdom)
Bookseller Rating: 4-star rating
Quantity Available: 1
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Price: £ 26
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Destination, Rates & Speeds
Book Description: No Publisher Noted, London, 1990 First Edition. Wraps., 1990. 8vo. Illustrated wraps / paperback. pp 64. Black and white illustrations. Written by a detainee of the Iraqi security services, who was tortured whilst imprisoned.
Follow the money, part 5
I was always wondering whether or not the french ruin what Saad was said to own, was a fake setup by french and british intelligence. That ruin does not fit at all. It makes no sense.
Was this perhaps a villa in Cannes instead?
This Waleed or Walid
https://plus.google.com/103734455016598391099/posts
United Nations honors MP Dr. Walid al-Hilli 12/15/2012
http://www.changesxchange.com/t18123-united-nations-honors-mp-dr-walid-al-hilli-12-15-2012
Frozen account:
Follow the money, part 6
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/202978/Iraq_consolidated_list.pdf
http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/watchlistsearch/watchlists/boe/8282.html
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/pages/20040415.aspx
I missed this – Telegraph June 24 this year – but it just shows how ludicrous this “case” is:
The prosecutor also said on Monday that they had, for the first time, been able to speak to the daughters of the couple.
“The discussions with the youngest girl didn’t really bring anything new,” said Mr Maillaud.
“But the older girl could confirm that they family went to Chevaline to go for a walk. That’s her recollection – even if she wasn’t exactly aware of what was going through her father’s head.”
She also told the police that “there was no one else there” when the family arrived at the car park.
“The oldest girl has certainly seen plenty of things, but for the moment she is not able to tell us,
“She has a mental block surrounding the events, which is understandable given the traumatic events that she lived through.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10139823/French-police-would-have-interviewed-Zaid-al-Hilli-months-ago.html
what a load of cobblers.