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?
It isnt usual for Mossad to ask other people/criminals to do their dirty work unless it is in another middle eastern state or somewhere they couldntoperate, they usually take great pleasure in doing it themselves in my expereience (and I have read a lot of literature on the subject).
They have designed weapons to shoot and have the signiture of other weapons before so they cant be traced.
This wasnt an international hit but an assasin working for an intelligence service there is a difference, carefully planned and carried out knowing that no trace will ever lead back to them. The lack of evidence since day one has pointed to this.
Every Bullet hit their target???
This also points to that this wasnt industrial espionage but actual espinage!
Guardian report:
However, police said they still had no idea who the killer might be except that he was an “experienced gunman”.
“We don’t know who they are except that they could hit a moving target and change cartridges. It is clear this was a hardened gunman.”
Experienced Gunman or Gunmen?
I am starting to think this isnt possible, hitting a moving target and reloading and hitting everyone in the car except the little girl?
I bet Mi6 investigation was completed months ago and is a much better read………….someone email Snowden?
Now it’s £1,680! Very precise figure. Now 1994.94 Euros. (Perhaps it was exactly 2000 E at the time?) Some people will do a lot for two grand obviously especially if it was FOUR people plus the complication of children. Was this the total “fee”? Were “expenses” extra? Getting from Romania and holing up in Switzerland or EA France can’t be cheap. And then there is all the organisation required. What would a Rumanian assassin use as bait to get them to an isolated spot or alternative know precisely when he would be there. Surely if there was only ONE target (not discussed) a far more convenient moment could have been that ONE? If the police are to be believed, SAH was the only target if it was a brother money dispute, why the other victims including a “passing” French unrelated cyclist? All highly unlikely I would say, yet presented as if reliable fact with no proviso’s or cautions from our friendly correspondent in France. Is it gullible police or gullible correspondent we are dealing with here?
“Peter Allen in Paris
Published: 05 September 2013
Updated: 16:23, 05 September 2013
A hired assassin with military experience could have murdered four people in the Alps for just £1,680, a witness has told British police.
The chilling claim was released today — the first anniversary of the massacre close to Lake Annecy, in France.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/alps-massacre-family-shot-dead-by-balkan-mercenary-for-1680-witness-claims-8799398.html
And a cheap (very cheap) Romanian gunman driving a £50,000 RHD Range Rover? Don’t make me laugh. Now if they had suggested it was the crazy male driver in the Peugeot 2/306 – now that would make some sort of sense but Maillaud says he has identified and excluded him, though telling us why and what he was doing there. Very reassuring (not).
*not telling
Saad recorded all his telephone calls http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-09-06/french-alps-murder-victim-recorded-all-his-phone-calls/
Ferret
5 Sep, 2013 – 9:00 pm Of course a “blinking Zaid” may or may not be indicative of falsehood. If it is, the untruthful statement may not indicate culpability for or implication in, the murder of his relatives. In other words he may well have an idea who was behind the event without being involved in it himself. Faced with the question, apart from silence or “No Comment” it was the only possible one he could make in the circumstances. For some reason he has allowed himself to be used as the only diversionary story line. If there was one iota of truth behind the story that he was responsible, no suggestion of it would have been made until sufficient evidence had been gleaned to arrest and charge, and probably given the seriousness of the charge, oppose bail and remand. As it is a “joint investigation” the British Police would have had all the evidence available. To point the accusatory finger without it, is yet another strange element in this case.
According to this report the bullets have MULTIPLIED to “more than 25”. First time I’ve seen that one!
http://news.msn.co.nz/worldnews/8718655/french-alps-massacre-still-baffles-police
“All four victims had been shot at least twice in the head during an attack in which the killer or killers unleashed more than 25 shots.”
From this report also the following “fact”.
“Since the inquiry started British police have taken 60 statements, seized 5500 documents and 1600 exhibits, Surrey Police said, and travelled to France several times.”
So that’s SIXTY people on just the UK side with an involvement sufficient to merit a statement. I wonder who they could be?
from my Tim V
6 Sep, 2013 – 12:24 pm post. So the logic of this would be that it cost 2000 E to kill four in France but FIFTY times that much to kill ONE in Britain? Whatever could this mean? Fifty times as difficult. Fifty times as important? Inflation? (Ha! Ha!)
Another argument to use in your deliberations
Proponents of intervention in Syria often refers to the attack on Kosovo in 1999, which also happened without UN autorisation. But Kosovo was not a sovereign nation at the time.
The seriousness of this — proposed — intervention is that Syria is a sovereign country, a proud member of the UN. So if — God and all honest men and women in the world united in opposing Israeli schemes of letting the rest of the world take out it enemies one by one — this foul undertaking was to go ahead — God and all honest men and women in the world united in opposing Israeli schemes of letting the rest of the world take out it enemies one by one — this would then only be the second instance ever that the UN was deliberately bypassed before an attack on a sovereign country took place – the first being Iraq, which was invaded in March 2003 on a lie of non-existent so-called “WMD”s and link to AQ – the greatest strategic blunder in the history of The United States of America.
How have they NOT reviewed the calls yet?
I havent posted for many weeks though have been keeping up every day, just with nothing productive to add.
Could someone please check to see if my following observation is correct:-
The photo of the BMW being removed in this photo:-
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/alps-shooting-three-people-in-france-massacre-shot-with-executionstyle-bullet-to-the-head-8112462.html
and by stopping this video at 52 seconds:-
http://www.onenewspage.us/video/20130905/1401333/Zaid-al-Hilli-speaking-to-Sky-News.htm
are different?
The orange strapping on the video (I am colour-blind!) isnt on the photo, but also the tension and creases of the tarpaulins over the cars are different. I couldnt see the ‘possible bike?’ that was wrapped individually in front of the car either -though very tricky to stop the vid just right for that.
Maybe the video is just from the restaging. I noticed the report failed to spell contributor James Mathews name correctly.
@ Ricky Tarr
Exactly!
11 months to not have transcribed all phone calls and entered them into a database. GCHQ could do that for them in a couple of hours.
Maillaud is quoted: “the documents in the case ran to “cubic metres”.
Perhaps someone should tell him that during the war was invented something which the Académie française call un ordinateur. Perhaps someone could lend him one.
I just had a look Straw44berry and the strapping is there I think its the same, the video gives a distorted view so its difficult for me to see the creases.
It’s wonderful Russia continues to oppose The United States and its 51st state, Israel, in their latest joint scheme of removing Israel’s enemies obne by one. Russia continues to send ships to the Mediterranean, absolutely wonderful to oppose the thick-necked (all those hamburgers they swallow) US marrines.
I have actually recommended to Putin to issue a nuclear threat to The United States, as the only effevtive means to force them to back down – odd course followed by a crack down and internment on all Israel-connected individuals in and around Washington – in an attempt to free America of the greatest internal foe it has ever had, But maybe this nuclear stuff won’t be neccesery, as Putin seems to have played his cards very well.
Apparently Maillaud said this at the press conference today:
“We are working with a number of foreign countries to find out if any secret services were involved, but who knows. It is a complex inquiry and maybe this lead will go nowhere.”
From a fuller report in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/french-alps-shooting-victim-recording-brother
Mailloud sounds like he is where we were 6 months ago!
Well at least we aren’t the only “conspiracy theorists”.
Quite why Maillaud would expect to get any truthful answers from any secret service (including his own national service) is beyond me.
He would probably be better off asking the Russian or Iranian secret services!
The first interesting detail I have seen so far in a lot of waffle.
” The US authorities, after months of delay, had finally approved access to data from Saad al-Hilli’s computers, stored across the Atlantic.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/alhilli-killings-one-year-on-mystery-surrounds-the-quadruple-murder-in-the-alps-8801964.html
Alex at MZT has just posted this taken from from the twitter feed of Jean-Marc Ducos’ .
““#Chevaline. Sylvain Mollier was on the phone with his ex-wife right before he died. Exclusively tomorrow in Le Parisien.” –
See more at: http://www.marilynztomlins.com/articles/chevaline-saad-al-hilli-sylvain-mollier-murder-most-foul/#sthash.ekVsKseY.c0ycYaqB.dpuf
Do cyclists have some sort of hands free system ?
I wonder how long “right before he died” is .
Pink, thanks for looking at vid
9.05pm Was that in the area with no mobile phone coverage?
Well Straw that’s an interesting question, I don’t know much about cycling but would he be on the phone whilst riding uphill on a racing bike and navigating all those potholes plus as you say signal problems.
If right before meant literally and he could talk on the phone he could also have heard shots if the shooting started with SAH and would have been unlikely to ride into the layby.
They may just be playing with the “Right before” to get readers and it was earlier in the day.
She is the handler!
“She is the handler!”
For f*** sake !
Off Topic:
Current Bomb Scare situation not being reported by MSM.
1) QE2 bridge and Dartford Tunnel been closed since 4pm
Bomb Squad on scene for many hours
Being reported minimally by the BBC (nothing else is)
2) Controlled explosion carried out in Welwyn Garden City
3) Coach in Dover -Bomb Squad on scene
4) Latest:- Coach stopped at Dartford with 2 bombs on board
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23996065
http://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/woodhall_bomb_scare_army_carries_out_controlled_explosions_1_2370743
It was a joke!
Kim Willsher in Annecy
theguardian.com, Friday 6 September 2013 10.34 BST
“The two girls are reportedly in the care of a foster family.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/06/french-alps-killings-police-inquiry
So despite a decision over a month ago that “Mr Justice Baker has approved a plan for Zainab and Zeena Al-Hilli to be cared for by two members of their extended family following a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London.” (Huffington Post 28.7.13) they are STILL in foster care?????
http://www.thelocal.fr/20130906/brother-of-alps-murder-victim-re-bailed-in-uk
Published: 30 Jul 2013 19:16 GMT+02:00 | Print version
Updated: 30 Jul 2013 19:16 GMT+02:00
“Zaid al-Hilli, 54, who was detained in June on suspicion of conspiracy to murder but then released, has been “re-bailed until October 23 pending further enquiries”, police said.
He had been due to return to a police station to answer bail on Wednesday. There was no immediate explanation from the force as to why the renewal had taken place a day earlier than expected.
His brother Saad, Saad’s wife Iqbal and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf were killed in the family’s BMW estate car in a car park at a beauty spot near Lake Annecy on September 5.
French cyclist Sylvain Mollier was also gunned down, although investigators believe he was not a target and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The al-Hillis’ two young daughters survived the shooting. Zainab, then seven, was badly injured while Zeena, then four, huddled behind her dead mother’s skirt for hours until police found her.
A judge ruled last week that the two girls, who have spent 10 months in foster care, will now be cared for by two members of their extended family.”
NB. “A day early”. Presumably as a precaution to prevent an assassination attempt. How is it possible if the police believe this was a murder inspired and supervised by Zaid as they are suggesting, Zaid himself could be a target? Quite irrational and yet the media apparently swallow unquestioningly this stuff!
“Now be cared for…” Clearly not. And the same logic goes for the children i.e. if still at risk as their exceptional treatment proves, how could this possibly fit the “Zaid chief suspect” theory. It’s patent nonsense.