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?
CD
2 Sep, 2013 – 7:04 pm if you haven’t spotted it, you may be interested in my posts earlier specifically relating to that useless Independent article.
‘ The Iraqis have not replied to any official correspondence from France.
The Romanians have failed to identify the numbers telephoned by Mr Al-Hilli.
The United States has refused to order the release of Saad Al-Hilli’s computer files’.
Three countries refusing to play ball…….that to me speaks volumes, who has asked/instructed them to be unhelpful ?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/a-year-on-at-annecy-the-unsolved-mystery-of-the-alhilli-layby-murders-8793467.html
What would be your most penetrative, un-deflectable questions to ask at the press conference on Friday?
I’d ask, ‘have the police interviewed other Iraqis who were in Saddam’s party & fled Iraq & arrived in the UK at the same time as Kadihm’
Where the family followed from the UK?
What was the threat he received on the call before he left as mentioned by neighbour?
What was found at his home to trigger the bomb squad being called?
Why was he being watched by special branch?
Shreen, thanks so much for offering to answer some questions to help us avoid baseless speculation. That’s really helpful. 🙂
I’m particularly curious to know if you are able to verify anything about Saad’s work?
He was initially reported in the mainstream media to have worked at RAL as a student in the summer holidays – is this correct? And do you have any idea what he worked on there? And do I understand correctly you were at Kingston Uni at the same time, and if so, did you also study engineering or were you on a different course? And, if you did do engineering there, was it common for students to work at eg RAL in the summers or was this exceptional?
As everyone knows his most recent work was widely reported to be at SSTL, a satellite company. As you say, it not a defence company, but as Q pointed out: “SSTL is not a defence company, but it is owned by European Aeronautic Defence and Space, EADS, which has clients including Russia and China, MOD contractor Thales, and NASA.” So it obviously raised some eyebrows. Do you know (and can you say) anything about what he did there?
Thomas posted a link to some Facebook comments which indicated that Saad also worked at the UK offices of a Swedish company called Elekta, who make medical lasers – where he was apparently considered something of a genius. Do you know anything about this?
Thanks for anything you can answer to help clarify these points.
Press Conf is at
09H30 dans la salle de cour d’assises
du Palais de Justice,
Annecy
Anyone have press credentials?
We should also consider that the romanian numbers arent necessarily romanian numbers.
Those couod be skype numbers as well.
I have a skype number, too, and its country pre dialling number is from a totally different country than where my nest is.
The romanian numbers could be calls to iraq, saudi arabia, to sweden, to france or even to serbia.
However, what we know from Snowden today, skype is open to the NSA and the americans and the brits should have to know that skype account as per yet.
It is impossible that they or the romanians would not know the person behind the number if that were no skype account with a “romanian” skype number. However, the recipient of that call could easily live elsewhere and he had probably never been in romania and perhaps he does not even know about where romania really is.
Skype and Divert offer virtual romanian phone numbers. If i were a pro killer or a spy then i would use several dozens of virtual phone numbers, by trying to hide my whereabouts …
http://community.skype.com/t5/Skype-Number/Romania-online-number/td-p/725424
Quote:
Buy Virtual Telephone Numbers from Romania
VoIP phone numbers in Romania or nearly anywhere else in the world are available for use immediately here at MyDivert.com. Select Romainia to find available areas and monthly cost.Now you can have telephone numbers in Romainia that can be directed to (ring-to) any phone in the world with no need for a landline. Our easy-to-use call forwarding service will deliver your calls to any telephone in the world at very low call rates.
Communication Solution
When you need to forward your callers to any country you are visiting, a virtual phone number can be your solution.Wide Geographical coverage for DID NumbersHave calls forwarded to any countryMake ‘ring to’ number changes online 24/7Forward calls to your cell or mobile phoneVirtual phone numbers are actually real phone numbers that will send callers to any other phone number worldwide. Your incoming calls can be forwarded instantly to a landline or mobile globally.
http://www.mydivert.com/buy_telephone_numbers/34_Romania_numbers.html
Also BB, Skype accounts are not secure, mine is on auto top up…or was !
Twice mine has been hacked & someone made calls to Indonesia,long expensive calls…….., That was most definitely not me,the numbers called or called from, are clearly displayed in payment & call history of my account .
intp1 2 Sep, 2013 – 9:40 pm What would be your most penetrative, un-deflectable questions to ask at the press conference on Friday?
1. How were Mr Martin’s bona fides established so quickly given that he was leaving the scene of the crime? How many times has Mr Martin been interviewed by M. Maillaud? When did the most recent interview take place?
2. Were Mr Martin and his clothing checked for gunshot residue and, if so, when were those results first available to investigators? Was his mobile phone taken for testing? When exactly was Mr Martin given permission to return to the UK?
3. Why the wait for a forensics team from Paris (8hrs) when the local regional team in Lyons could have been there in little over an hour?
4. Who instructed that the scene was to be left untouched for the 8hrs it took the Paris forensics team to arrive?
5. Were intelligence service personnel in the British embassy in Paris alerted to the fatalities prior to the local Gendarmerie?
6. Were the local Gendarmerie informed about the incident from Paris before the emergency call was received from close to the scene?
7. During the eight hour wait what searches, road blocks and other measures were instituted on all potential escape routes for assailants from the scene of the crime?
8. Do you believe that the al Hilli family’s presence at the scene was pre-arranged? If pre-arranged then who with?
9. If it was not pre-arranged then they either must have been watched, monitored or followed by their killer(s), or they were the victims of a random killing. Which do you believe is more likely?
10. How much pressure are you and the French authorities under from the British government to solve this crime?
11. Why has there been so little progress?
Intp1
2 Sep, 2013 – 9:40 pm – so many options. As the “initial 3.48 call” brought me into this thing, here is just ONE I would ask:
“Why did the French lie when they claimed WBM had made the call when they must have known it was someone else?”
@CD
Congrats.
I guess you’ve just compiled a fairly comprehensive list of appropriate questions that WON’T be asked at the press conference.
And thus not answered.
gOOD QUESTIONS CD
3 Sep, 2013 – 11:26 am many of which I raised at the beginning. One more to make it a nice round dozen?
AGrainOfSalt
3 Sep, 2013 – 12:33 pm
They would need to have extraordinary control over agreed questions and who was called.
Not impossible but I cant imagine the French ever being that organized.
If anyone can gain access, I could drive from MRS.
It will be interesting to see the quality of the questions (have the paper Editors been got at?) and how open to answering them EM (?) will be? How can they be honest given the terrible performance, errors and misinformation. Who would be in Maillaud’s fall-guy shoes?
Shreen, I don’t want to swamp you with questions but I’m also really curious about the things that have been said about Saad in the papers… like accusing him of a vitriolic fight with his brother about the inheritance (which frankly I doubt, mostly due to Zaid’s quite plausible denial, and turning himself in to the police, etc, he just isn’t acting guilty).
Also, how much truth would you say lay in the statements by Gary Aked (is he really a good friend by the way?) that Saad was a vehement opponent of the USA and Israel and spent hours posting anti-Israeli diatribes on various Arabic forums, from a bank of five computers in his house?
And, would it make sense for Saad to be reported by Gary as “… He read the Koran and it was always left open in the front living room of the house” – even though Saad never went to mosque and wasn’t a member of one? Not being a muslim perhaps this is a bit of a naive question, hope you’ll forgive me if so.
Hopefully this might be more the kind of question you can answer, I appreciate ones about his work might be either impossible for you to say because you just don’t know, or might be confidential, or might prejudice the enquiry.
Thanks in advance for anything you are willing to say about this – or any of it really.
I wouldn’t expect anything new to come out of the press conference. Newspaper reporters are interested in finding something newsworthy, not in solving crimes – that’s the job of the detectives. And they are also interested in keeping on the good side of the boys in blue, so they might get an early tip-off if something good comes along. They just don’t have the same interests as us armchair (or not so armchair!) sleuths.
And sorry Intp1 but I just don’t have press credentials! 🙂
As the anniversary nears, I wonder if we ever talked about particle laser Doppler anemometry test equipment, etc. mentioned here under “In-flight test instruments for the Airbus A380 and A400M”.
http://www.sundance.com/about.php?page=application_stories
True or not?
“Syrian state TV reported in July that the regime had recovered stockpiles of chemical agents, which were being stored in rebel-held areas of Damascus, including the suburb of Jobar, which was one of the areas hit in the 21 August onslaught.
Regime forces said they confiscated 281 barrels “filled with dangerous, hazardous chemical materials” after finding them in weapon stockpile in the city of Banias on 7 July.
Chemicals including monoethylene glycol and polyethylene glycol were recovered, along with canisters and stockpiles of corrosive agents bearing Saudi factory markings, according to Russian media.
Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said that the chemicals recovered in Jobar were “capable of destroying a whole city, if not the whole country”.
Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have backed Assad’s regime, while Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the West have called for its downfall.”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/503422/20130903/syria-chemical-bnd-hezbollah-gerhardt-schindler-assad.htm
The part played by Germany in this Syrian/Chevaline issue is rather interesting. They cropped up with incriminating information as regards Al Hilli. Were they helping France out in a sticky wicket?
Now they crop up with significant input to help the French and Americans to persuade everyone that rocket attacks are necessary.
Then we learn they have “listening ships” off Lebanon and tap Hezbollah.
“German intelligence agents say they have new evidence that the Syrian regime was behind the chemical weapons attacks on rebel-held areas of Damascus which left more than 1,400 dead.
The agents added they were almost certain that the chemical agent used was the nerve gas sarin.
German intelligence intercepted a telephone conversation between a senior member of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iranian diplomats in Beirut, said Gerhard Schindler, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
The high-ranking Hezbollah operative admitted that poison gas was used but said that he believed that Assad had “lost his nerve” and “made a big mistake” by ordering the attack.”
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/503422/20130903/syria-chemical-bnd-hezbollah-gerhardt-schindler-assad.htm
The first ever bi-lateral US/Sweden visit! I wonder if recent events have influenced decision?
“Obama Arrives in Sweden Before G-20 Summit
By PETER BAKER
Published: September 4, 2013
STOCKHOLM — President Obama arrived here Wednesday morning on the first stop of a brief overseas trip as he sought to shore up international support for a limited military strike against Syria’s government in retaliation for a reported chemical weapons attack.”
“The clash over Syria comes as relations between the United States and Russia have hit their lowest point since Mr. Obama came to office determined to rebuild ties. He had originally scheduled a separate visit with Mr. Putin in Moscow before the St. Petersburg summit meeting, but abruptly canceled it last month after Russia gave temporary asylum to Edward J. Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who disclosed secret surveillance programs.
Instead, Mr. Obama added a stop in Sweden, where he was greeted in friendly fashion. A Swedish newspaper described its country a “Little USA” and described the way it was trying to emulate America politically, economically and culturally. Still, the leader of a small political party said Mr. Obama should stop tapping her e-mail account and give back his Nobel Peace Prize.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/world/europe/obama-arrives-in-sweden-before-g-20-summit.html?_r=0
Meanwhile Britain gets the cold shoulder for the first time and France becomes the US’s “oldest friend”. I wonder if this is not a reflection of Chevaline also?
“By Hayley Dixon11:56PM BST 02 Sep 2013
Military sources have claimed that the role of senior British officers at the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, has been downgraded because their American counterparts believe that they cannot be trusted with high-level intelligence about a conflict with which they are not involved.
Roughly 30 British personnel have been working alongside the Americans and French and have been involved war planning for a number of weeks, including fine-tuning a list of targets and orchestrating military assets.
But after Mr Cameron ruled out an attack following a Commons defeat on Syrian action last Thursday the officers have been told that they can no longer participate in classified plans, the Times reported.
No British officers are now engaged in military planning and none will be involved in the execution of the operation, a British defence official confirmed.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10282460/Unreliable-British-officers-left-out-of-US-meetings-on-Syria.html
I only say that the American President does not stop off in a country by accident.
http://inquiringminds.cc/pipeline-politics-and-the-syrian-war
B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G [What’s wrong, I only say that the word is breaking apart into individual letters]
French report says ‘at least 281 killed’. Very different from the US alarmist claim of 1421. Here US intelligence officers admits that they really haven’t had adequate access to Syria for the last ½ year, so they have to rely on Israeli estimates. And Israel has, as we know, a direct interest, that the rest of the world should remove its enemies one by one.
Are we powerful or not (cont.)
The only other place Obama visited this afternoon — apart from a visit to the Royal Engineering High school was…wait for it. the Stockholm Synagogue. One should think that there was very many other interesting things that Sweden has to offer for the president to see.
In Denmark they undoubtedly also could get away with this sort of thing. But they are up against the probably best informed people on the face of the earth, so they couldn’t get away with such a hilarious selfish high-jacking of the President of The United States
In Denmark they undoubtedly also would like to be able to get away with this sort of thing. But they are up against the probably best informed people on the face of the earth, so they couldn’t get away with such a hilarious selfish high-jacking of the President of The United States
By Adrian Shaw
French Alps shooting: Saad al-Hilli ‘changed his locks in fear of brother’
2 Sep 2013 00:0
“Mr Maillaud said the family dispute “is so colossal” it would take investigators two years to go through the legal papers, in English, Arabic, Spanish and Swedish.
The prosecutor added: “Based on letters we found and conversations Saad had, he feared for his life.
“He expressed his worry for his life due to his desire to recover his father’s fortune and the conflict it caused.
“That fear was there.”
Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/french-alps-shooting-saad-al-hilli-2244622#ixzz2dxNBfYBt
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/french-alps-shooting-saad-al-hilli-2244622