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?
Sabah Abdula Qadir al Shaikhly.
His father was Abdul Qadir Jassim al Shaikhly.
veterinary medicine, one of the most reknown veterinary scientists worldwide.
Ph.D. at university of Bristol 1972.
1965-1967 Veterinary expert and veterinary inspector of the Iraqi Army.
Veterinary professor at the university of Baghdad.
Now i remember Kadhim’s poultry farm.
There might be another (biological? chemical?) link ….
Both the French and U. S. authorities must have known about Ikbal’s stay in the U. S. for a long time now, because she had to have her prints taken when she applied for a Green Card there.
More puzzling is why she turned up in the USA in such a haphazard, disorganized manner:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2687572/Iraqi-denies-arranged-marriage-Alps-massacre-mother-U-S-man-claims-died-day-pure-coincidence.html
Mr Alshaikhly, 62, met Mrs Al-Hilli in 1999. A Dubai-based doctor contacted him and said he had a friend who had recently moved to the US and was looking for a place to stay. He explained: ‘My friend called me and said Kelly had been in America for a few months and she had no money and nowhere to stay. ‘I wanted to be a good person so I let her stay with me in Atlanta. She had moved out here to be a doctor, so I took her to Emory University to see if it was possible. ‘She was already highly qualified, but they said she needed to go to medical school for one year and then take exams. She did not want to do that.
In my opinion, that sounds neither like something that a career-minded dentist would do (who would have established the requirements for recertification and arranged the necessary paperwork before even setting foot in the U.S.), nor like something that an intelligence agent would do. Rather, it almost sounds as if she had been running away from something or somebody – a failed first marriage in Dubai, for example?
Regarding her career as a dentist, Dr Zaid Alabdi has claimed that he studied alongside her for some time. The only place where that can have been is at the University of Badgdad, where he completed his Bachelor of Dental Surgery in 1987. If I am right and Iqbal also studied there, she must have completed her BDS at around the same time. The following years are a blank, until she turned up in the USA coming from Dubai in 1999. Her parents lived in Sweden at least since 2001 (the first time the Swedish police were called about her brother Haydar Thaher – by the way, why is his surname Thaher?). Given that the Swedish cops were called fairly regularly in the following years, I would assume that her parents arrived in Sweden not long before 2001. Roughly at the same time she moved to the U. S., I would assume.
AFAIK, Dubai has only quite recently opened its first dental school. Thus, Iqbal must have acquired any further qualifications over and above her BDS elsewhere. It is almost certain that she did aquire such qualifications, because this quote, ‘She was already highly qualified, but they said she needed to go to medical school for one year and then take exams, indicates that she already was a fully-qualified dentist in another country when she arrived in the USA. My guess is that she trained in Bagdad (where her sister lived), before moving to Dubai at some point in the mid-nineties. Then, as I have argued, things in Dubai must have turned sour for her in 1999, because she did a runner, neither returning to Bagdad to stay with her family there, nor joining her parents who were in the process of moving to Sweden. Rather, she chose to move to the U.S. on her own, a move that appears to have been a hasty, spur-of-the-moment decision.
Excellent piece of work Peter.
The key to this then may be in Iraq after all (or Dubai).
And may not be “about Saad”… but about his wife.
Oh, sure, it was a revenge act by a suitor of Iqbal al-Hilli who killed somehow her first husband, plus her mother, at the same time.
And George Clooney, who helped set up Burbank Bureau resident Steve Ivens as an assassin of Obama on a re-election swing through Hollywood in May 2012, is right to be going after the DM for libeling his wife-to-be.
Keeping track of what is true, and what the DM is really up to requires real brains.
peter
regarding Haydar Thaher
“Thaher” (also spelled as Taher or Tahir) is an Arab boy name but no surname.
His full name is Haydar (Hayder) Thaher (Tajir/Taher) al Saffar.
I believe that he worked in a pharmacy. He doesnt work in that pharmacy nowadays.
cashed version:
http://www.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=6566085507&page_url=//www.thackerspharmacy.co.uk/staff/prev-staff-seperator/haider-al-saffar&page_last_updated=2013-02-01T06:42:26&firstName=Haider&lastName=Al-Saffar
current version (no Haydar al Saffar in staff):
http://www.thackerspharmacy.co.uk/staff/
Arabs can shorten their name but even if they do so and using their two first names only, they still have a surname and his surname is al Saffar.
Here are two pictures of Haider al Saffar from 2011. However, I cannot confirm if that is the one we are searching for.
http://www.thackerspharmacy.co.uk/author/admin/page/6/
This is the facebook site of the ex-pharmacy Haider al Saffar. That is confirmed simply because he still comments on Thacker’s pharmacy facebook site with that very facebook account (see below). He seems to live in Dubai nowadays.
https://m.facebook.com/haideriaspire
this account had been created in nov. 2012
This is the girl with whom Haider al Saffar won that pharmacy prize. Pity we cannot read the handwriting on their prize documents.
uk.linkedin.com/pub/fatemeh-ghari-s-fatemeh/7a/120/954
http://www.thackerspharmacy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/haiderfatemeh.jpg
Confirmed. This is the RIGHT Haider al Saffar.
Mist likely this must be Iqbal’s brother.
https://m.facebook.com/umhussain.alsaffar.7
Watch the screenshot of this facebook page and particularly the friends list. There they’re all of them. Even uncle Ahmed al Saffar who was popular in the news media after the killing is there. And of course there is Haider al Saffar.
We have got 2 guys from the al Hilli family there, too. The other Ali al Hilli from Glasgow and Mohammed al Hilli, the prayer.
We have all the al Saffars we already knew from the media. A truly great source for genealogy studies.
katie et al, could you pls do some screenshots from that friends list?
Anyway, Eric Maillaud must be getting ready to ditch his long held view that Zaid Al Hilli had his brother rubbed out for an inhertance?
The English police should ask Mr.Zaid Al Hilli,
if he knew Iqbal had been married previously to Mr.Thompson, in America.
Did Zaid have any suspicious about Iqbal.
Did he know about Mr. Al Shaikhly & Iqbal “staying” with him.
I think Zaid is closer than ever to getting off Eric’s hook.
From the DF article cited by BB above:
“Reports have even suggested that the Al-Hilli’s hastily-arranged family holiday was actually a cover to meet Mollier, who was not just a cyclist.”
This is the one thing that makes most sense to me.
just as a side note:
Our al Saffar/al Hilli family have two representatives living in Kiev/Ukraine.
Adil al Saffar and Oleg al Saffar.
That’s quite interesting.
what is even more interesting is the matter of fact that ALL facebook messages from jan 2012 thru oct 2012 – whomever you will open and look at on fb from this family clan, be it al Hilli or al Saffar family members – had been deleted. You can open their fb messages 2010, 2011, but then there is emptyness until nov 2012, then they continue. ALL of the guys and girls in the friends list, but not just a few of them. ALL of them have no fb messages jan-oct 2012. None at all.
Most of the members of that al Saffar family clan were born in Hilla. That’s intriguing. The more I think about it the more this is getting crystal clear that al Saffar and al Hilli are one family only who was intermarried since many 100 years. Cousin marries a cousin. Even at this time there are lots of muslim imams in both families.
Blue…
I can’t see that this “Haider Al Saffar” who won the “pre registration graduate 2011” being the 46 year old chap we are trying to find information on.
If he is, he certainly doesn’t look it !
http://www.thackerspharmacy.co.uk/blog/pre-registration-graduate-of-the-year/
As far as I can recall HAYDAR THAHER (Al Saffar) was in Sweden at “certain points” in time. In Sweden he been arrested a couple of times for “violence towards his parents”. His parents did not however press charges.
It is understood that the British police located him in a U.K. psychiatric
hospital in September 2012 after the shootings.
It is believed he had “arrived” at that hospital in late August 2012.
The question is….had he arrived there from Sweden ?
Had he travelled across with his mother ?
I wonder how common it is in America for people to have died at the wheel.
Fairly uncommon, I expect.
Michael, especially in their 50’s !
Katie,
if it was a million to one chance that someone in their fifties would die at the wheel.
It must be a billion to one that on a different continent their ex-wife dies in a hail of bullets on the same day
or rather unlikely
michael
i know many people who had heart problems who had died on the spot when they received the death message regarding a wife, a son or a parent.
A few days ago i had speculated about a scenario that possibly his family received that message from the al Saffar family at that exact time. Such a message could just be the final stress for a weak heart.
james
Without any doubts whatsoever, THAT Haider al Saffar is a part of the correct al Saffar family branch. However, maybe there were two Haider al Saffars. Haider and Haider Taher. That could be a reason and a possibility why the other one used that second name.
On the other hand, when looking at him, he doesnt look that young.
Mental health problems could be caused by drug addictions, too.
Pharmacy, drugs …
When visiting the parents, drugs might be unavalable and the addicted gets aggressive.
Mental health clinics care for drug addicted, too. Particularly rich drug addicted people like rock stars and actors visit mental health clinics from time to time.
Blue..
That chap maybe part of the family, but I don’t see him a a 46 year “pre graduate” pharmacist trainee”.
Interesting point you make about “the hospital”.
Was it a “hospital” or was it “rehab” ?
As a “Swede” (or an Iraqi) you can’t just turf up to the local hospital and book your “mentally ill” relative in for a week or two. It doesn’t work like that.
BUT you certainly can do that if your a “cash paying” punter and it’s a private hospital. That wouldn’t be an issue at all.
Above post…. as in, “in England” that is.
No “edit” function !
Michael agreed.
BB, that maybe so , but do not forget how long ago these two separated.
I’d say that reduces the shock enormously & even the daughter said they knew nothing of the ‘new’ husband.
That to me sounds as though Iqbal was no longer in touch.
James they most certainly did park him/Haider, in a private facility of some kind whilst they shot off to France.
I always understood he was some sort of mental patient, but you could be right about rehab.
He could well be a highly qualified chap with a drug problem.
katie
I thought about something like that:
http://www.castlecraig.co.uk/admissions/private
http://www.whatclinic.com/doctors/uk/drug-addiction-treatment
It’s good when you have a female psychiatrist in your family who works and lives in Stockholm.
http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/database/authors/44670/
http://akademitrauma.se/om-oss-2/suad-al-saffar/
Psychiatrist Suad al Saffar worked in Basra treating traumatised patients who were tortured by Saddam Hussein and she treated traumatised victims of the war.
Suad is a girlname. Just thinking: … Suad … Suhayla????
google translation of swedish text from link given above.
This information is from approx. 2004.
Suad Al-Saffar is a licensed psychologist after studying at Stockholm University and her doctorate at the Karolinska Institute (psychiatry) with a thesis entitled Trauma, ethnicity and posttraumatic stress disorder. Before she started her university education in psychology, she had worked as a teacher at Sando school and as refugee coordinator in Nynäshamns municipality.
With a background in both Iran as Iraq, she has throughout her life been open to – and interested in – cultural encounters. Since childhood, she speaks Persian as well as Arabic. In the meeting with refugees, she saw the need for knowledge of trauma and its consequences. Nor psychologist studies covered her need for knowledge in this area. In addition to the clinical experience and additional training, she decided fyllla the gaps with their own research projects.
For 3 years after Iraq war worked Suad Al-Saffar in an international aid project planners, teacher and director of a treatment center in Basra, as she built up. The client was Danish Foreign Ministry and the IRCT (International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims), and later also the EU. The operation was directed at assisting those who were tortured and traumatized during Saddam Hussein’s regime and the subsequent war. Suad research presently at the Karolinska Institute, where she leads a course on the effects of trauma from a clinical and public health perspective. She has held positions including as a lecturer for the UN, Basra University and an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Health. Her training includes both medical professionals, NGOs, lawyers and police chiefs
I think this makes more sense BB, didn’t we all feel it was rather cold hearted to dump the guy in a mental home or psychiatric wing & then shoot off on holiday ?
Whereas, if he had been taken to rehab , I believe they’re not allowed visitors or contact with the outside world whilst being treated…..
Let’s face it with a family like this one could understand the chap having some problems !
Her full name is Suad S. al Saffar
She speaks Farsi, Arabic, English and Swedish.
She has roots both in Iran and in Iraq.
She worked for UN, for the EU and in Basra for Danish military units.
http://www.lakartidningen.se/Functions/OldArticleView.aspx?articleId=18897
Something is puzzling, if an ex-soldier was found shot dead,
in his own apartment leaving a multipage suicide note,
why would the law agents search the drains?
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/international/alps-murder-ex-soldier-found-dead-1.404177
Also, if Eric was sure this chap offed himself, why can’t he be named?
Katie
if he really is drug addicted and they of course knew that the media would search for Iqbal’s brother, then of course it would have been the best idea to move him into a locked private rehab. Simply because a drug addict is a risk. He could talk too much whereas the other family members could stay quiet.
If the killed mother was a reknown psychiatrist then it would have been even easier to lock him in a mental health clinic for locking out the media.
Possibly “schizophrenic”.
Turns out he lived with his parents for some of years he was in Sweden.
Between 2001 and 2007 the police were called out 8 times.
In the article it says that in a transcript of one interview, the parents believe there son to be schizophrenic. (why would you “believe” and not “know” ?).
Anyway…there’s not alot else to go on.
Was he then hospitalised in Sweden (post 2007) ?
Did he live back at home with his parents….diagnosed and on medication ?
Just a thought.
Is it possible that after the death of Abdul Al Saffar, the mother decided to move to the U.K. (sponsored by her daughters and son in law). For this to happen, they had to wait for a place in a hospital for the son ?
I mean the NHS is so crazy, you can come from anywhere and get “free treatment” !
Iqbal has no links to the U.K (other than marrying Saad).
Her mother and brother have no links whatsoever.
Is the system that mad that he was able to get a place at a U.K. hospital ?
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/Portals/0/PDF_Files/pdf12/sep/15/17.pdf