My post on the shootings in France has brought tens of thousands of people to this site – but not to read my dull contribution. People are coming to read the comments from other readers.
Today’s development of the bomb squad descending on the al-Hilli house does not in itself worry me enormously. You may recall the massive terror scare that was ramped up when some Muslim students in Manchester were found to own a bag of sugar.
In fact we have the opposite phenomenon today, with the spook-fed “security correspondents” on TV lining up to tell us it is probably just everyday household stuff. This deviation from the standard Islamophobic “Muslims = bombs” narrative is so startling it makes me wonder why the “move along, nothing to see here” line is being taken so quickly.
My own security services sources insist that al-Hilli was not a person of current interest to the UK intelligence agencies and was not involved in anything clandestine. I have no reason to disbelieve them. On the other hand, the limited and confusing information in the media is almost entirely from official sources. I find it very strange indeed how little attention has been paid to the murdered French cyclist, and how easily it is presumed he was just a passerby. Surely it is as likely he was the intended victim and the al-Hillis the accidental witnesses?
Please do read the comments on my first entry on the subject to see the debate unfettered by the censorship in the mainstream media. This is perhaps my favourite comment:
From Janesmith101
All comments regarding Sylvain, Al-Hilli and a possible nuclear link are being removed from sites I’ve posted on in The Guardian, Independent and Huffpo UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/sep/09/alps-killer-motive-baffles-police
Here was my comment, I added as a point of fact it was completely speculative and an unproven theory in a later comment, also removed.
Sylvain Mollier, the ‘passing’ cyclist, was in fact a nuclear metallurgist who worked for a french nuclear company called Cezus (a subsidiary of Areva). Cezus fabricates and processes zirconium into metal and nuclear grade zircoaloy for nuclear fuel assemblies – it also has other applications in aerospace such as components and ceramics for missiles and satellites. Mr Al-Hilli was also a skilled aerospace engineer, on what looks to be his first camping holiday.
What is the probability that two highly skilled engineers managed be at the same remote place, at the same time, yet still managed to end up dead as a result of what looks to be a military style assasination?
As someone else pointed out in The Independent comments, the deceased were found by a ‘retired’ RAF officer who, we assume, will recieve perpetual anonymity as a witness. If the police are looking for a motive, try an intercepted rendevous by a security service fixated on denying a hostile power illicit nuclear technology.
http://wrmea.org/component/content/article/162-1995-june/7823-israel-bombs-iraqs-osirak-nuclear-research-facility.html
The Huffington Post UK reports that this wasn’t the family’s first trip to the camp site. An earlier report had asked other camp site visitors whether they had seen the family before and they had replied they hadn’t. If this isn’t wasn’t the first visit by Al-Hilli, it might slightly increase the odds that he knew or had met Mollier before, this being the last in a series of rendevous of a transactional nature. Mollier lived and worked locally.
Again, I’m not sure of the truth of these reports, there is some very sloppy journalism, as there is always seems to be. I’ve read for example Mollier’s company Cevus descirbed as a steel firm something which it is patently not, but perhaps it may have been a detail lost in translation.
An interesting comment summing up some of the strange coincidences, at least, surrounding these murders. My other favourite comment calls me a “macchiavellian shill”.
I have only one thought of my own I want to add at the minute. Al-Hilli was a Shia muslim and had been on pilgrimage to Qoms in Iran. What if it is indeed true that he was in possession of no especial nuclear or defence secrets to pass on to the Iranians, but the Israelis thought that he was? The Israeli programme of assassination of scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme is a definite fact. It makes as much sense as anything else at the moment, as a possibility.
I am not saying that is what happened. But the directions in which the mainstream media is being so strenuously pointed by official sources, like the massacre of an entire family over an inheritance, are certainly no more inherently probable. Certainly as we are now told all the shots were from one gun, for the assassin to get each victim in the head with none of them being able to escape, indicates real proficiency with the weapon and a very high level of training.
“It makes as much sense as anything else at the moment, as a possibility.”
Yep, we’re thrashing around in the dark, mostly. But perhaps one bit here, and one bit there, will come together at some stage and there’ll be a lightbulb moment. 😉
That media discourses are all ignoring the possibility it might be a Mossad hit job is enough to make me suspicious. It surely has to be high on the list of possible explanations.
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
My theory.
The ex-RAF cylcist was said to be just behind the French cyclist Mollier. I think he was shadowing him. I think MI5 knew that there was some kind of meeting between Mollier and Iranian agents. I think the French are very embarrassed by what looks like a worker of a state owned nuclear group selling know-how to help Iran make nuclear warheads. Especially as it highlights the substantial Iranian money invested in France’s nuclear industry. I suspect Al-Hilli, who was Shia and no doubt had mixed feelings about the UK and US after the Iraq war, and who came across Zirconium in his work with micro satellites, was perhaps being used by the Iranians to simply verify the industrial information.
Whether it was a hawkish Israel taking matters into its own hands, or an Iranian punishment for Mollier or Al-Hilli being double agents, I am not sure.
On the one hand, the attack is stark and brutal and conspicuous, and involving the murder of French and British nationals. It seems strange that Israel would not liase with its allies to create a more discreet series of arrests.
But equally, the manner of the attack seems very different to the spate of Iranian attacks on Israeli targets, which are frankly amateur and exclusively involving explosives.
Also, the fact that Chevalier was the codename for a nuclear weapons project where the UK realised they couldn’t rely on the US to retaliate if the Soveits attacked them, seems too coincidental not to perhaps be a bit of Mossad jiggery pokery.
This hit, after all, could be seen as the Israelis saying that they can no longer rely on the West to protect it from nuclear annihilation, and that it must go it alone. With the current lot in charge of Israel, one can imagine their line and ours is very different.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jan/08/iran.observerpolitics
This is exactly what I mean, and the sort of thing that would have fractured UK and Israeli defense relations to the point where something like the Al-Hilli massacre could happen.
a few years ago many bio scientist died in strange circumstances in UK and Iraq. Israel does not want any arab nation to modernise, they bomb them into the stone age.
Its great how they have a nice cover story for this recent killing, a family disupte.
Its little known fact that David Cameron once went to south africa to acquire nukes for Israel, he went there with one David Kelly
The stories being bandied around by the mainstream media and official sources are changing faster than new posts were added to the earlier thread – i.e how many bullets each, one or two weapons etc etc. The two ‘facts’ that have remained constant in the face of so much speculation and assumption are the ‘retired RAF’ man who ‘happened upon the scene’ and the dead cyclist who ’apparently stumbled across the attack’.
I think it’s probable neither of these statements are true.
to see if israeli fingerprints are on this crime, see what sort of news management has occurred and also which day it was done. anyone remember the flotilla that Israel slaughtered, to cover this stroy up , some random person drover around devon on a killing spree this ensured that the israeli crimes were “wiped off” the front page and replaced by crazy Englishman roaming devon.
@Craig, you old Machiavellin shill you! (wink)
You said: Certainly as we are now told all the shots were from one gun, for the assassin to get each victim in the head with none of them being able to escape, indicates real proficiency with the weapon and a very high level of training.
The guy would have had to be better than Calamity Jane!
7.65mm suggests the Mossad weapon of choice, a Beretta 70 or 71. 8 rounds per chamber. The official story says 30 seconds firing. Witnesses talked of automatic fire, at a nearby camp site.
Anyhoos that means at 8 per slide, one shooter would have to reload at least 5 times in 30 seconds.
Right!
Why would agents have a meeting? Library sized amounts of information can be left on a joint newly created email, or on many-gigabyte sized micro-sd under an agreed stone. .
The only suggestion I can make is that French cyclist has a sample of some new alloy. and ex-iraqi scientist can verify it on behalf of whoever. this idea doesn’t really hang together – wouldn’t he use a lab at home?
I can believe that grandmother’s face was shot off, and that the police looked for wedding photos etc in the UK in order to verify the passport.
Was wife wearing a head-scarf which initially covered the wounds?
Are the bodies still in the car in the helicopter picture in say Photo 3 {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19540445}
The caravan looks tree-berth. Mummy and daddy, two small kids and grandmother. Why the ftw/three person tent pithed alongside (see photo 1 above)/
My big “why oh why?” is the seven-year-old (non-dead, fractured skull, shot through shoulder – lots of damage with a 7.65 unless careful to give flesh wound} Smacking her over the head in order to give her amnesia seems hopeful on their part.
Oh is that so?
Surrey Police confirm that items found at the home of Mr Al Hilli were not hazardous.
Sky News
Yet the mud sticks. Earlier the BBC even had an ex Royal Logictics Corps officer on to explain the intricacies of ‘Improvised Exploive Devices’.
Copied from old thread and posted to Icke yesterday. 1 shooter would give some substance to this.
If the French cyclist was cycling towards the car when the gunman from the cover of the trees by the road, steps out after he passes and shoots 5 bullets into his back. The cyclist comes to rest where the tarp right by the BMW is seen later. Assassin comes to the fallen cyclist and 2 more shots to the head.
But if the assassin has been waiting for the French cyclist he is aware of the family in the BMW. But perhaps the ex-Raf guy is one of the little girl’s ‘good men’ and he is there for their protection while their father is meeting the ‘bad man’-the French cyclist who has been sending metals to Iran for nuclear…. The ‘good man’ becomes a ‘bad man’ when he doesnt just observe but shoots the French cyclist and continues by shooting the only material witnesses. This would only work if he already pre-planned becoming the British cyclist and taking the bike from the roof, but he told the family to put the bike there as it would explain why they went down that road in the first place.
Perhaps the 4yo was never in the car seat, the 7yo was and the 4 yo was already sitting on the floor by her mothers feet. Who was in the front passenger seat? The ex-RAF guy who protects the family and told them he has to meet the ‘bad man’. While there waiting for the French cyclist the 7yo wants to go to the toilet and gets out of the car.
The ex-Raf man makes sure the 7 yo girl cant tell the police anything when they arrive.
This would explain why the 4yo doesnt know the good men from the bad.
I want to ask the 2 bricklayers was there a bike on the roof of the BMW, & were there 2 men sitting in the front.
The green 4×4 turns suspicion to that.
The lady in the village saw no more than a bad driver on a bad bend but was a convenient diversion, for more leads.
Why so many shots? The 3 adults killed from the front passenger seat and then shot thru the windows afterwards to cover up.
Join the dots: Cezus is a subsidiary of Areva, and so is Eurodif (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurodif) in which Iran remains a shareholder: http://pages.citebite.com/l4i9f7q3cjej
I thought the original “family feud” theory smacked of racism. Whoever floated that theory presumed – somewhat correctly – that a sort of it’s-how-those-Iraqis-resolve-their-differences theme could percolate the media. It perhaps worked for a while.
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As seems to be increasingly the case with these types of stories, it’s on the internet that you find people asking the more pertinent questions. And idiotic speculation is as likely on the internet as on the mainstream outlets. This is a truly wierd case, and anyone mindlessly regurgitating official lines is simply not worth listening to.
DonnyDarko on the old thread posted the coords of the murder location as 45.731048,6.225787 – Google Maps link http://goo.gl/maps/5v3jV
Anyone disagree with that? Looks about right to me.
Originally Posted by molliemallone
What a surprise… the bomb squad have left the Al-Hilli home and the cordon lifted!
Is it just me, or does the ‘workshop’ look like nothing more than a shed? If SAH was worried enough to have electronic locks and some sort of booby trap protecting it (alluded to on BBC news) surely it would have been a bit more sturdy than a wooden shed!
Re your timeline Anders (thank you for posting it), I have a question…
If RAF man was overtaken at 15:43 and got to the scene at 15:48, that is only 5 mins, during which time Mollier got far enough ahead of him that he didn’t hear any shots being fired? Has it been reported how far away from the scene of the killings RAF man was when he was overtaken by the cyclist and witnessed the vehicles?
I would have thought that if he was only overtaken 5 minutes before finding them all, he would only have been a short distance behind Mollier, and therefore would have been able to hear the shots (they were heard by someone else, so no silencer used). Looking at what has been reported, it seems the track was uphill, and looking at various cycling forums, it would seem that a very good uphill speed is about 16kmh (10mph) vs average at 8kmh (5mph).
If Mollier had been travelling at 16kmh, he would have covered the following distances over the 5 minutes…
after 1 minutes 267meters (just over 0.16 of a mile)
after 2 minutes 534meters
after 3 minutes 800meters
after 4 minutes 1068meters
after 5 minutes 1335 meters (just over 0.8 miles)
If RAF man was travelling at 8km/hr, he would have covered the following distances over 5 minutes…
after 1 minutes 133.5meters (just over 0.08 of a mile)
after 2 minutes 267meters
after 3 minutes 400meters
after 4 minutes 534meters
after 5 minutes 667.5meters (just over 0.4 miles)
If RAF man was only 667.5 meters away from the killing site when he was overtaken, Mollier would have arrived at the site after 2.28 minutes. After 2.28minutes, RAF man would have travelled 320meters, placing him only 330 meters (1/5 of a mile!) behind him, surely he would have heard the shots over that distance?!
If there was only one gun (as we are now being told) Mollier must have been shot first as he too would have heard the shots being fired over the 30 seconds if he was still cycling up the hill, and surely would have turned around ASAP!
Sorry it’s so long winded!!
Absolutely BRILLIANT stuff MM!!!
during which time Mollier got far enough ahead of him that he didn’t hear any shots being fired?
I’ve always said, RAFman is lying, I’m a keen mountain biker too, and when someone overtakes me I get annoyed and try and keep up, RAFman would probably be the same being a Type-A Pilot doncha know, so anyways my gut instinct was he wouldnt be far behind.
Now your brilliant work has placed him at 333 metres (I like 333, the bastards like it too!)
Great stuff!
The nuclear angle may be misguiding us.
Fundamentally Al-Hilli was a micro-satellite engineer, working at times for Surrey Satellite Technology. He was also company secretary of AMS 1087 Ltd, claimed to be an aerial photography company. So he knew a lot about small satellite and hi-res observation cameras.
Iran has an extremely youthful satellite industry, most recently launching the 50-kg Safir-2B into a low orbit. It is obvious Iran would want an small optical spy satellite ASAP. Al-Hilli has exactly those skills, and he has visited Iran. Whether he has any links with Iranian space developers, or not, that seems like it would make him a possible target for some.
Originally Posted by molliemallone
Thanks Anders, thinking about it… RAF man would have been even closer when the shots were fired as it took 30 seconds to fire all the shots, placing him well under 300m away by the time they’d finished firing!
Me thinks he’s LYING!
We’ll have to rename RAFman to =>>> PINOCCHIOman!
MollieMalone’s calculations are based on the assumption that the RAF guy was overtaken by Mollier 5 minutes before he arrived at the scene. (If RAF man was overtaken at 15:43 and got to the scene at 15:48). Where is the corroboration of this? If official statements were made verifying these timings, then MollieMalone’s calculations would be broadly correct, and very telling.
@ Larry Levin Interesting comment about David Cameron and the South Africa nukes.
There’s more here:
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?8933-David-Cameron-amp-the-History-leading-up-to-him
Fast forwards from there via Gerald Bull, the Iraqi supergun affair, Matrix Churchill etc. etc.
Those were murky times indeed.
Okay, I think I have the link.
Chevaline was a project codename to improve the penetrability of the warheads used by the British Polaris nuclear weapons system. This was the first submarine-based British nuclear weapons system.
In June of this year Iran announced it was planning to develop a nuclear-powered submarine.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-iran-nuclear-submarine-idUSBRE85B17Q20120612
Uranium-zirconium alloy fuels were used in the early US nuclear submarine programs, and zirconium alloys were used to clad the reactors powering them.
Al-Hilli has been credited as designing the galley kitchen of the new Airbus.
Could both be targets for designing a weaponised nuclear submarine? Mollier the reactor, Al-Hilli the actual interiors?
“DonnyDarko on the old thread posted the coords of the murder location as 45.731048,6.225787 – Google Maps link http://goo.gl/maps/5v3jV
Anyone disagree with that? Looks about right to me.”
I thought that was on a mountain bike trail but you may be right in which case only 1km from 3km sign and police road-block
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=45.731048,6.225787&hl=en&sll=57.746995,-4.687341&sspn=9.759158,19.753418&t=h&z=17
Wonder if there was a GPS destination programmed into the car’s sat-nav?
Google Navigation says the road is suitable for vehicles and they weren’t at a dead end. Another track that carries on up the mountain side from that point is listed as not suitable for vehicles and I cannot plot a driving route up it. However the route might be suitable for bikes (off-road push bikes, motorcycles possibly?) A main road will be reached after travelling 1/2 mile (as the bird flies – longer on the track as it zig-zags).
chevaline is not only the place in France it is also the name of a British nuclear warhead project!
Yeap – the bikes seem the biggest question now. Was there one on the victims car (would explain the apparent damage to the roof rack). And are we sure the ex-Raf man came on a bike – I hope the french police check to make sure which bike really belongs to which person. There may only have been two bikes to begin with or maybe there was three so where is the missing one. An exchange of bikes would be one way to exchange technology – especially effective if they were very similar bikes.
On my Google map I failed to correctly mark the 3 km sign, your location appears to be 1.2km away
@nuid
French say they know how many guns and what type they were and what cartridges
all they are confirming so far is 43 bullets and 7.65mm
7.65mm suggests the Mossad weapon of choice, a Beretta 70 or 71. 8 rounds per chamber. The official story says 30 seconds firing. Witnesses talked of automatic fire, at a nearby camp site.
Anyhoos that means at 8 per slide, one shooter would have to reload at least 5 times in 30 seconds.
Now – if two guns were used, both Beretta 70/71s, it still means each was reloaded 3 times or so…
Camp site witnesses say they heard 30 seconds of automatic fire
So that rules out 2 x Berettas
I suggest one Beretta was used, at least, for accuracy, and another gun, at least, on automatic
@Bajer
MollieMalone’s calculations are based on the assumption that the RAF guy was overtaken by Mollier 5 minutes before he arrived at the scene. (If RAF man was overtaken at 15:43 and got to the scene at 15:48). Where is the corroboration of this? If official statements were made verifying these timings, then MollieMalone’s calculations would be broadly correct, and very telling.
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I concur, and I’d also like to know please if anyone has a source for the alleged 10 mins RAFman was alone with the beemer, and whomever else, before he called the cops/ambulances
I
Aren’t (some of) you forgetting something?…
The Iranians have decreed nuclear weapons as forbidden. If Al-Hilli was involved in proliferation, it could well be for an alternative foreign power, and not Iran. [A Central Asian states perhaps?]
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I would imagine Iran’s RnD sector is sufficiently advanced that it would not need to gain the kind of information a french Nuclear engineer could furnish – which would very likely (in my eyes anyway) be related to civilian, and NOT MILITARY nuclear technology.
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All this could be a set up to make it LOOK as if Iran has a secret plan. The fact that chatter is suggesting just that, is quite telling I feel.
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And does nobody find it peculiar that with the ratcheting up of anti-Iranian rhetoric to near ‘twelfth hour’ proportions of late, then suddenly this happens?
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Whoever did the multiple, probably professional assassinations, indicates an ACTIVE and rogue agency is at work which is able to operate undetected by the standard intelligence and law enforcement agencies. That is very disturbing, and shows they themselves must be hunted down. But of course this would not happen if it’s authority is sufficiently high, like an agency of a state for example.
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This ‘group’ has the ability to track and hunt down opponents as well as possibly being able to undertake successful surveillance on people who surely must have taken high levels of security and anti-surveillance measures IF they were up to something serious.
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It doesn’t take much thought to narrow the list of perpetrators.