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?
@NorfolkEagle
I posted extensively about Silver Fern’s financials on the first thread. Any chance you could research that and come back and post any questions, or a summary if you feel it’s relevant here?
In my personal opinion it smells very fishy indeed.
Thomas,
I have also seen that she was under a pile of bodies. I thought this was a car and not a truck and there were only 2 bodies in the back.
@ Thomas
“It was first reported that the 4-year girl was found under the mothers legs and bags.
Later on the bags was not mentioned in the media.”
Thanks. That’s how I remember it too.
“Normal families don’t sit in cars in remote carparks for an hour.”
Suggestion: Why is mother in law there? To guarantee the identity of someone they are waiting for? Wife and children too — to appear like family outing — to relax granny — they don’t want to be left alone. Contact expected: Iran dissident contact / underground? ie Mother in law an important element.
@Peter
Thanks for answering my questions. In summary then, would it be fair to say that with a 7.65 para with military (FMJ) ammo at close range you’d expect small exit wounds from the skull, with little or no blood/brain splatter in the car, reasonable prospects of quietening (but not completely silencing), rapid fire possible so that it could sound exactly like automatic fire (if unsilenced), and reloading with a fresh magazine being relatively quick.
Is that accurate? Just trying to summarise – feel free to make any corrections.
I always wondered what the Swedish connection was with Iraq.
Not much is the answer, but it looks as though Dave has come up with a reason to apply for asylum,false passports.
@Ferret
Thanks I will have a look, keeping track of info on here is becoming impossible!
a couple of quick questions:
2010 he puts in £600k and the company is holding 3350k cash and £193k in stocks?
2011 the cash is gone but liability remains?
sorry, should say £350k cash
@Oliphant
Suggestion: Why is mother in law there? To guarantee the identity of someone they are waiting for? Wife and children too — to appear like family outing — to relax granny — they don’t want to be left alone. Contact expected: Iran dissident contact / underground? ie Mother in law an important element.
Again this is something that was debated at great length on the first thread. Apparently it is normal practice for agents to bring their families along to meets, as it makes it look more normal and provides some form of insurance (but clearly didn’t work in this case).
Plus, it would have looked odd to have left granny alone at the camp site… There has been speculation that she might have been a courier to take whatever was being exchanged (if anything) to Iran. Or not.
And there has been speculation that Iqbal, with her Iranian origins, might have been important too. Or not.
Perhaps the family were there as part of the “cover”. It is quite possible they didn’t even know that *anything* was going down, and believed simply that SAH was meeting a friend… or a colleague…
Or perhaps they were in on it.
Lots of discussion on the first thread.
“Why is mother in law there?”
Because they were running, and only stopped to warn Mollier?
@Kathy – at the press conference they described it as two large travel bags in the back seat near to where the youngest girl hid.
So why were the travel bags inside the car & not in the boot, was the boot full , if so with what ?
“So why were the travel bags inside the car & not in the boot, was the boot full , if so with what ?”
More stuff, if they were doing a bunk they’d have a fair bit to take.
The boot and was full I think it mentioned that becaus ethey where camping it was full ofcamping equipment etc I cant remember how it was described when translated from French!
All on the old thread!
@Ricki Tarr
5 Oct, 2012 – 12:27 pm
Two large travel bags. Dressed up. Suhaila with two passport ( Swedish 74 year / Iraqi 77 year ).
On the way to an airport later on, to say goodbay to the grandmother when flying to the Middle East with a false passport? And bringing something delivered by Mollier?
Dave, I think someone at the campsite would have noticed they were loading suitcases into the boot….. but wait, they did move from one site to another, the boot could have been packed then unsuspiciously.
In Car:
Travel bags
Passports
Phones
All key to this investigation!
Can someone nail the al-Allaf/al-Saffar Iran connection or rule it out.
I think I recall seeing a source that said Suhaila (al-Allaf/al-Saffar) was originally from Iran, and that Iqbal was born in Baghdad. If this is true then perhaps Suhaila could speak Farsi and was to interpret.
This is all speculation – who knows? Perhaps SAH was assured that it was a no risk situation and he just had to confirm identity of SM for SIS? But wires got crossed and others unknown thought it was a real handover, or double cross?
@CD
5 Oct, 2012 – 12:37 pm
In Swedish media it´s been said that Suhaila spoke Arabic and English ( not Swedish ) and had been an Englishteacher.
I think there been no confirmation that Suhaila and/or Ikbal where from Iran. Just an Australian paper that wrote Iran ( by mistake? ).
Kenneth:
Bluebird, see my post from 6:52 am, where I quote you as saying that Ikbal’s sister is Yasser, Senior Economist at the Bank of England. Can you confirm this.
+++++++++++++++++++
I can’t remember where I said that.
I found one of my posts where I wrote:
Yaser is Senior economist at the Bank of England
Fadwa is the sister of Iqbal.
I don’t know where I (as you quote) apparently said that (or mistyped it). I simply can’t find your quote anywhere. Of course, Yaser is a male, so he can’t be a sister.
I would appreciate if you could tell me time and date of that “quote”.
@NorfolkEagle
I don’t have the reference material with me at the moment so don’t want to say anything definitive unless it’s wrong.
I think (from memory) that the money was invested in real estate, probably the house in France as he lets that out through the Silver Fern website.
Sum total is that they’ve lost about £60,000 since they started trading.
I think there been no confirmation that Suhaila and/or Ikbal where from Iran. Just an Australian paper that wrote Iran ( by mistake? ).
That has been suggested but I think it’s a non-starter as a theory.
The article in The Australian was re-printing an entire article from The (London) Times, an article written by one David Brown.
Assuming even Australians can copy and paste (tongue firmly in cheek), if it were a typo it would then have to have been a typo by The London Times, not The Australian.
And seeing as how The London Times’ stories are usually checked and rechecked by copy editors, sub editors, and so on, I think personally it’s unlikely it’s a simple typo mistake.
Perhaps someone who feels it is more likely to be a simple typographic mistake could post a link to an article from a reputable newspaper or journal where the word “Iran” was inadvertently printed when “Iraq” was intended?
Bluebird It’s OK, I have just misunderstood. I will delete Yasser as a sibling to Ikbal on the family tree. Fell free to write om David Icke (now this one closes soon) which other names could be included in the tree.
Ferret It is fairly obvious that the whole point is to show some losses so you don’t have to pay tax. And this could also be the reason for all this range of odd companies, that Saads accountant excels in.
You simply circle the money around, and the taxman has no clue. Under Margaret Thatcher a lot of things were privatised and public servants sacked. So its possible — you know better than me — that the Tax office do not have the resoruces to collect the proper tax, and simply cannot make out what is what in this jungle of companies.
@Kenneth
Yes but there are no significant drawings or expenses either – so no way he could have gotten money out of the company illicitly to avoid tax.
The only think I can think of is that he suddenly came into £600,000 and was wondering what to do with it…
@ Ferret
Thanks for answering my questions. In summary then, would it be fair to say that with a 7.65 para with military (FMJ) ammo at close range you’d expect small exit wounds from the skull, with little or no blood/brain splatter in the car, reasonable prospects of quietening (but not completely silencing), rapid fire possible so that it could sound exactly like automatic fire (if unsilenced), and reloading with a fresh magazine being relatively quick.
Yes, that is a fair summary. I have subsequently found a doctoral thesis (in German, unfortunately, and also featuring images of shot pigs, unfortunately)
http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/7939/1/Geschosswirksamkeit_Sebastian_Kunz.pdf
that backs up my assumption that passing through the side window of a car would barely affect the shape and velocity of a 7.65 Para bullet. The experiments were conducted with 9 x 19 Para, but I would expect the results to be very similar for 7.65 Para. In essence, the FMJ bullets completely retained their shape after passing through the glass, irrespective of whether they were fired at at 90° or 30° angle. Depending on the angle, they were not slowed down by that much, either. As a result, they would be very likely to cleanly penetrate a human head and they would be unlikely to be *immediately* fatal.
Iqbal’s mother:
Her name is Suhaila M. al Allaf. This is her girlname.
She married Abdul Amir al-Saffar, however, due to their tradition, married women keep their girlnames during all their life, that’s why she still has got an al-Allaf passport.
The Al-Allaf family is of Arab origin. Most of their family live in the UAE (Bahrein, Dubei), Kuweit, Iraq, Jordan and Syria. They are a Shia family. Iran is no origin for the Al Allaf family. Their family branch orgin is in Basra.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sayid Mohammed al-Allaf, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was shot to death in Sadr City, a largely Shiite neighborhood of northeast Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
http://articles.cnn.com/2005-05-19/world/iraq.main_1_al-sistani-sunni-mosques-shiites?_s=PM:WORLD
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
@ferret
there are so many errors in the newspapers regarding uncles, aunts, brothers of the family. Simply forget it.
Just an example:
One newspaper writes that Ahmad al Saffar is the brother of Suhaila al Allaf. Another newspaper writes, however, that he is the brother in law. Of course he has to be brother in law, otherwise, Iqbal wouldn’t be an Al Saffar but an Al Allaf. We should not rely on stupid journalists in cheap newspapers but let’s rather do our own research and our own approval and our own logic.
@Kenneth
You are misrepresenting the situation.
Brett Martin’s company is owned and controlled by him and his wife, no one else. Neither of them has any other directorships.
So it’s not part of any “jungle of companies” as you put it…
Ricki,
The boot was full of business as they were on a caravan holiday (from memory) -seems like a mis-translation to me -more like expected items for a caravan holiday