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
11 Sep, 2013 – 1:16 pm from your ref. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4402610,00.html
“The probe suggests that a security camera installed in Zygier’s cell had been out of service on December 15, 2010 – the day the prisoner killed himself. The camera had been positioned to film footage from near the toilet – where Zygier had taken his life.
The camera did not transmit footage to the control room, but only to the supervisor’s office. This room had not been manned at the time due to a personnel shortage.
“There were constant complaints about it,” one prison guard said during his interrogation. Other witnesses said they had reported the malfunction to their supervisors months before Zygier’s suicide. But the camera was not fixed.
C., the prison’s tech officer testified he had not been aware of the malfunction. Had he known, he would have solved it “that very day,” he said. B., the control room technician said he only learned of the fault a day after Zygier’s suicide.
M., a prison guard who was questioned under caution, said he had left the supervisor’s room at 5:52 pm and went into the control room. There, he had to monitor several cameras at the same time, in addition to those in Section 15.”
How convenient.
you are so well read James. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenes_of_Crime_Officer
Talk about stating the OBVIOUS. We can all see they are SOCO unless white overalls and numbered markers are suddenly all the rage around litter bins.
The simple question I posed (yes SIMPLE rhymes with “DIM”)was, was this Martinet or not? You obviously think it WASN’T in your normal manner you just ooze scorn but don’t say why.
As this is labelled MZT sourced, and you (or your alter ego) is a regular contributor there, maybe you could find out what the photo relates to, whilst no doubt having great fun at my expense, and report back when a satisfactory explanation is provided.
No doubt in the interests of truth, if it IS a photo of Chevaline you will also let us know, so that a simple question as to its location can be resolved.
Oh I obviously don’t know as much as you do about guns either as you arrogantly state. I think I’m pleased. However months and months ago I raised the characteristics of the Luger in relation to the trajectory of the spent cartridges and its incomparability with where they were said to rest. Oh yea you just poured scorn on that as well.
I have to say at least in this you are consistent. Never anything original or constructive but always replete with sarcasm for those that do.
Ferret @ 9 Sep, 2013 – 7:39 am wrote:
“… Bleb, I take your point about the Israeli’s getting intel direct from the USA, certainly gives pause for thought. Of course it doesn’t always work in that direction, and I don’t think they always have every piece of intel available… they may have had the photos but not analysed them properly, for example… …”
Hi Ferret – just for info:
“NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans’ data with Israel”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents
Again sorry for being OT, but hopefully also of general interest.
Katie
11 Sep, 2013 – 9:27 pm you and James should hook up. Your typing style is very compatible.
I remember 7/7. My daughter was on the tube train that arrived before the one with the bomb.
You dismiss 9/11 as “old hat” (well “old chestnut” actually) just “theories & the conspiracies”, yet that is precisely what you advocate for the Benghazi event. So it can’t be the conspiracy angle that makes you dismiss the one and hype the other.
Could it be just a partisan matter of who was in the White House then and now?
As to the “litter bin” it relates directly to the crime at Chevaline. This thread is about Chevaline. Why should you and James find a simple
question about it so distressing?
@Tim – re: your rubbish bin screen-cap
I maybe wrong, but I think what is being suggested, is that the French TV station were probably using stock footage of a crime scene rather than footage of the crime scene. And that somebody has taken a screen-cap thinking it was actually Chevaline and labelled it up accordingly.
as the subject of weapons has been raised again this old post elsewhere maybe worth another look
“The weapon was a 7.65mm Luger. (This is a different cartridge from the former standard French Army pistol, which is different again from Jame’s Bond’s 7.65mm Walther PPK.)
It was not a “P08” Luger as has been reported, because that was the standard 9mm pistol of the German army. The 7.65mm models were made earlier, the P04 model for the German navy and the “Swiss Government Model” which I think was the first really large batch of Luger pistols ever made.
I would question how easy it would be to tell, without finding the gun itself, whether it was actually the Swiss or German navy model. They are the same basic design, made in the same factory, on the same tools, by the same people.
Luger pistols could be fitted with extended capacity “snail” magazines, (holding up to 36 rounds) and mostly made by a third party company: Schmeisser. Given that 25 accurate shots were fired in about thirty seconds, according to ear-witnesses, I’d expect that one of these was used. 25 rounds represents, not a full snail magazine, but a single box of commercial ammunition. (Swiss government ammunition was issued in boxes of 24: enough for three factory-standard 8-round Luger clips.)
If the weapon was absolutely standard Swiss government issue, there would have been two pauses in the shooting, for reloads. Nobody is reporting the ear-witnesses as saying that. Indeed, most speculation, before the correct cartridge type was known, suggested a scorpion machine pistol to account for thirty seconds of continuous fire and twenty-five shots. Although, this would be the first time clinically accurate fire had been associated with such a weapon!
The Luger 7.65mm round uses the same case design, but a different powder charge, as several other 0.30″ or 7.65mm aka 7.63mm pistol rounds designed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. But you’d know if it was fired from a generic Luger pistol by the extractor markings: I’d be amazed if you could tell the precise model, though, because I don’t think that extractor ever really changed. It’s more powerful than the French Army 7.65mm round and much more powerful than the 7.65 Browning round used in the smaller version of the Walther PPK.
In this case, I think the extended magazine is going to prove more distinctive, and is probably more worth the bother of trying to trace it, than the gun. It’s the sort of accessory that collectors go for and dealers remember. The pistol might have been a locally-pilfered Swiss government weapon, but not the magazine.
BTW: the mother-in-law and her mentally-ill son were/are from Sweden, not Switzerland. The son is violent, but also very disordered so I’d be surprised at him being responsible for this sort of crime. (Which is what everyone with any sense said about Barry George.) If the shooting had happened in Stockholm, I’d have looked for the son. But in a remote location in a French forest, with the killer getting clean away in presumably an organised fashion?
The other nugget is that the snail magazine was reputed, back when people were still shooting Lugers instead of putting them in glass cases, to make the pistol easier to shoot both quickly and accurately, as the weight made it a bit easier to control. (There’s quite a lot of mechanical movement in a Luger: the whole top of the gun move a short distance, then the toggle mechanism moves upwards and rearwards. The toggle mechanism comes up through the shooter’s view across the sights, so not everyone shoots it well until they’ve got used to this. All the shots fired in those thirty seconds seem to have been deliberately placed, so not a novice, let alone a convenient lunatic.)
Posted by: Medawar | 09/30/2012 at 08:35 PM”
http://wrightblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/09/before-hunting-international-assassins-police-in-annecy-should-look-closer-to-home.html
Bleb
11 Sep, 2013 – 10:57 pm thanks for that helpful observation. It’s certainly a very real possibility that I hadn’t overlooked myself. I raised the question to nail it one way or another as I thought someone else might know for sure or be able to find out. Until it has been, it remains a POSSIBILITY that this could be Martinet as the tag appears to suggest. After all a litter bin in that location might be a very reasonable thing to expect.
However the point I have been making is that it does not appear on later images. If it was at Chevaline it was obviously removed early on. The further point of course is that if it is Martinet it would locate five bullets/casings precisely – in fact virtually the only ones, all the others being surmised, or inferred from damage, or suggested by the police informed early visuals – that now appear to have disappeared from the internet!
@Tim
Rolls eyes in disbelief !
@Bleb
Thanks for trying to explain to Timothy.
Still don’t think he gets it.
“Why should you and James find a simple question about it so distressing ?”
Is it because…
You are an idiot.
You hijack this thread with waffle.
You are “self righteous” beyond belief.
You seem not to understand “post the link” but LOVE “cut n paste” instead. Reams of the stuff.
….need I go on ??????
Straw re 11 Sep, 2013 – 9:26 am
Not sure that target shooting is going to directly inform any debate about cartridge location at the Chevaline crime scene. When target shooting you should have the gun upright and generally the barrel is level with the ground, assuming the target is at eye level.
When murdering the occupants of the BMW at Chevaline, the killer was probably pointing the gun downwards by maybe 30 degrees. This combined with firing from at least four feet from the car could cause the ejected cartridge to go up and forward in a nice ballistic trajectory, landing just in front of the car, bouncing, then its remaining momentum carrying it under the car.
The killer fired from at least four feet away in order to prevent any occupant from opening a door suddenly and knocking the weapon from his hand.
I would suggest that you try this as an experiment at home, but Tourettes Tony might return and none of us want that!
Eureka !
The case of the missing waste bin is solved…
Saads important papers were with him in the car, these were his designs for a & new revolutionary waste bin …otherwise known as unwanted material receptacle [UMR ] , they were to be made in……. Zircaloy.
The meeting with Mollier was to get additional advice on this material & moulding, the third person at the meeting was a marketing investor IE: Mr money…..
They spread the designs on the bonnet of the car…& Saad displayed his prototype UMR ….hence those odd marks which have never been explained.
The meeting went well until a dispute arose about the colour of the bin, Saad wanted Red & Mr Money wanted White & Mollier wanted Bleu………….
As the argument raged Mr Money pulled a gun & began shooting, once all were dead he grabbed the plans & high tailed out of the area, tres vite.
The prototype WMR was left at the scene……later removed for forensics, but not before the , eagle eyed Timbo had spotted it !
James,Bleb we could be wrong , maybe Tim has indeed stumbled upon the truth. 😉
@Katie
Why yes. It’s obvious now.
Hence the UK Plated BMW 4×4. That was to transport “Zirco Bin”.
And then the shooting started of course…
No wonder the SOCO guys are so interested in “Zirco Bin.
Thank God the TF1 crew weren’t spotted tramping around that small car park with their TV crew. Thank God for Timbo !
But on a serious note…the picture probably came from here.
“Teams TF1 followed one of their workouts and have done a story on technicians criminal investigation police, the TICS, which aired Friday, January 25 in the Journal of 20h”.
There’s even a little link look !
http://blogmetrologie3d.fr/tag/ircgn/
And why ?
Well the INPS (French SOCO) two hours away in Eccully, Lyon did not go to Chevaline.
The IRCGN did (Gendarmerie SOCO). And they came from Paris (Seine Saint Denis).
There were questions about this.
TF1 did a report.
Hence the TF1 logo on the “Zirco Bin” picture.
Timbo. Google can be your friend also !
Suggestion on how to collect the Syrian CW’s
by Kenneth Sorensen
QC, Queens own Counsel
[Could ideally be coupled to simultanious stripping of Israel’s and Egypt’s CW weapons, because we must remember that all of them only have these weapons because the others have them]
The Syrians shall oblige themselves to drive the weapons to the Russian base Tautus at the Mediterranean. The likely hood of them being used again will fall in proportion of the tons coming in. When 1,500 tons have arrived it will be very unlikely that any incidents involving their use will occur. If they do THEN the inspectors can drive in and have a look. This is the pragmatic way of dealing with this situation, and it saves a great deal of [UN] member countries money for armour plated vehicles and for soldiers protection, and it saves the lives of some of those soldiers.
——
Click on me name to read Putin’s piece in the NYT. Very clever framed, and wise worlds indeed.
[my emphasis]
Tim V
11 Sep, 2013 – 11:27 pm
This is a picture of a snail magazine on a luger (I think a larger caliber)
http://nramuseum.com/umbraco/ImageGen.ashx?image=/media/37924/11078_d1.jpg&class=FlashViewer
The snail magazine is rare, so hard to obtain discretely and not so easily concealable and looks unwieldy in a the situation as we underatand it.
I’m just thinking Occam’s razor. Why not select 2x 9mms? for simplicity and redundancy in case of failure? Unless you had these exotic items lying around.
The answers make more sense if you are a well resourced wet operation that works to deceive. You re-tool an Uzi or something per Ferret 8 Sep, 2013 – 8:05 pm
bring along broken pieces of Luger handle to help create a local loony narrative.
katie @ 12.59 previous page re “Col Vinnemann in charge of investigation”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/06/french-alps-gendarmes-annecy-killings
“‘In the presence of the captain Moulié, director of investigation and Vinnemann commander, who heads the research section of the gendarmerie in Chambery, and two representatives of the forces of the British order (Nick May, detective super intendant and Mark Preston, detective chief inspector), the prosecutor reminded the hard work of the Franco-British joint investigation team from twelve months'”
also http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2013/09/06/tuerie-de-chevaline-le-conflit-d-heritage-reste-la-piste-privilegiee
Three stripes and four stripes – I assume Vinnemann (a MAN!) is as I previously stated, still in charge, as he has been apparently from the beginning.
couldn’t agree more Intp1
12 Sep, 2013 – 2:58 pm. Planting evidence is such an old reliable trick that it certainly cannot be ruled out, a point I made way back. Those early graphics that uniformly showed the bullet casings by the rear offside wheel cannot, despite the usual apologists or mockers on here, be made to fit either weapon or shooter’s location. I do not believe the uniformity of the press visuals were just artistic license or coincidental. As the press weren’t allowed on site for two days, they must have resulted from press briefings from police sources and presumably authorised ones. Their removal from the internet is suspicious. Presumably because we have shown that both in relation to the bodies of SM and ZAH they must have been factually incorrect. Just as is the story that SAH struck SM not unlike the one the FBI advanced for the killing of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. “Blaming the victim” a useful way of avoiding the need for another vehicle and passing the buck.
great picture of the “snail” too Intp1
12 Sep, 2013 – 2:58 pm. and first time i ve seen it. No doubting why it got its name is there? I’ve read that some shooters prefer it as it gives extra weight to the gun, reducing recoil and affording greater stability/accuracy. But really – do we believe that such an “exotic” weapon/arrangement would be used for this operation. Like you I think it is highly unlikely. I take the view that such were the time constraints and need for accuracy, reliability and familiarity (the operation you can be sure was practised and finely honed) a more modern standard issue SA would have been chosen. So I would go for either the casings and gun part planted to allay suspicion or the French forensics are unreliable. If the former the true casings would have had to have been “cleaned” of course. There was opportunity to do this subsequently although i wudnt bet my pension on it. 😉
Just another Brainstorm but I was thinking, for a transfer of information, wouldn’t it be better practice for 2 parties not to meet? i.e. use a dead drop. Anybody with any kind of covert experience would have dropped something off for party #2 to pick up later.
Unless there was a real need to have a natter or exchange something bulky.
Reading Mzt just they were talking about the bikes and it triggered a memory of something I didnt think was odd at the time but it has just occurred to me that it was possibly a bit out of place.
SAH had taken a little pink bike on holiday, a Zeena sized bike and in the early pictures of the caravan the bike was behind the caravan on something round under the window you can see it here in the first and third picture minus the bike .
When I was on my bike hunt that some of you may remember I noticed it disappeared and it was put into the awning .
Now it could have got left out accidentally but it is odd that it was not put in a safe place before they left the campsite it was mentioned by a tourist he had been teaching her to ride the bike at some point not sure of when it was .
It occurred to me that it might indicate they left in a hurry for some reason neclecting to put the bike inside .
Just a niggly detail I know but it might be significant.
Sorry forgot the link 1st and 3rd picture the round bin with some red tape to a lead .
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-09-07/alps-victims-caravan-and-tent-taped-off-at-campsite/
intp1 @ 12 Sep, 2013 – 5:48 pm
“exchange something bulky” – remember SM was on a bike (a racing bike we are told) so at the most a [handle]bar-bag + plus back pockets of jersey (or even stuffed inside back of jersey) to carry anything. Doesn’t really leave a lot of room for bulk.
Tim V
12 Sep, 2013 – 4:08 pm
Yes, Tim….you are quite right !
@intp1
“exchange something bulky” – more thoughts:
If there was “something bulky” then I suppose a 3rd party (in a BMW 4×4? who turned out to be not as expected?) could have been meant to carry it and maybe did. In other words a 3-way meeting.
The drain the police where pictured searching (link below) would have been perfect for a dead drop, like the russian spies in the US using under a wooden bridge!
http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01580/112640214-620_1580120a.jpg
Maybe thats what Saad was there for to pick something up from the drop whilst the assasins waited in ambush!
“He also intended to travel to neighbouring Geneva where his deceased father had a bank account containing 800,000 euros (£674,000), according to Mr Maillaud.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10291951/Al-Hilli-brothers-locked-in-conflict-built-on-hatred.html
Up to now we have been led to believe he visited the Geneva Bank before the fatal event. This up-to-date report appears to suggest otherwise. So did he visit or didn’t he? And if he didn’t, how did the German SS know about the account and why announce it?
Sept 3rd 2013
“A well informed diplomatic source told As-Safir newspaper that “the US war on Syria had started and ended the moment those two ballistic missiles were fired.
“There was conflicting information, as Israel denied the missile attack and Russia confirmed the missile attack.
“An Israeli statement was issued indicating the missiles were fired in the context of an Israeli-US joint drill and fell in the sea, and that they were not related to the Syrian crisis.”
The well informed diplomatic source further told the Lebanese daily that “the US forces fired these two rockets from a NATO base in Spain, and were instantly detected by the Russian radars and confronted by the Russian defense systems, so one of them exploded in the airspace and the second one diverted towards the sea.”
In this context, the source pointed out that “the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated the detection of two ballistic missiles fired towards the Middle East, deliberately neglected two points: the first was the location from which the two rockets were fired, and the second was their downing.
“Why?”
http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00%2B01:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00%2B01:00&max-results=50
The following 2007 quote was used by Putin in his recent letter to the UN regarding Syria.
“Ex President Cossiga said:
From circles around Palazzo Chigi, nerve centre of direction of Italian intelligence, it is noted that the non-authenticity of the video is testified from the fact that Osama bin Laden in it ‘confessed’ that Al Qaeda would have been the author of the attack of the 11 September on the Twin Towers in New York, while all of the democratic circles of America and of Europe, in the front lines being those of the Italian centre-left, now know well that the disastrous attack was planned and realized by the American CIA and Mossad with the help of the Zionist world to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and to persuade the Western powers to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Francesco Cossiga (Italian pronunciation: [franˈtʃesko kosˈsiɡa]; 26 July 1928 – 17 August 2010)[1] was an anti-communist[2] Italian politician who was the 43rd Prime Minister of Italy from 1979 to 1980 and the eighth President of Italy from 1985 to 1992. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari.” WIKI
As indicated above Russia as part of its current face-off with the US over Syria, is giving publicity to a widely held view that 9/11 was a CIA/Mossad operation. This is important because it gives State Credence to an officially mocked and derided allegation (even here you will have noticed) Suppressed for so long, as it gains in acceptance internationally, who can tell what the implications will be for US relations with other nations around the world. What could be more damaging for Western credibility on the international stage, than acceptance of the fact that the whole foreign policy of the last decade, was predicated on lie and criminal conspiracy of huge proportions, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands both at home and abroad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK6VLFdWJ4I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6WSDxErgBE