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.
Yes that’s true , the usual trouble in France,rarely reported in the UK unless it becomes national, not close either.
“The shell of a burnt out car is seen in a neighborhood of Amiens, France, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. Dozens of young men rioted in a troubled district in northern France after weeks of tensions, pulling drivers from their cars and stealing the vehicles, and burning a school and a youth center. The police department in Amiens says at least 16 officers were hurt by the time the riot ended Tuesday, some by buckshot. (AP Photo/Georges Charrieres)
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/riot-engulfs-troubled-french-district-north
Have we any further info on the family business. In this article it is referred to as “mechanical engineering business” rather than a poultry business, as in other reports.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/family-took-sudden-holiday-after-fathers-recent-trip-to-baghdad-8114018.html
Thanks @Katie that was quick work
My pleasure, Guy & it does say Contact us. ;-)))
Ah no I thought you meant about the campsite Guy !
You meant the car LoL !!
@Katie Yep the car lol
mmmm ?
Courtesy of French Reuters
“I am deeply shocked,” he said in a statement Matt Perkins, one of the leaders of SSTL, describing a great professional who had many friends in the company.
Asked about a possible track terrorist Maillaud Eric replied that the father was “completely unknown to all specialized French and British.”
The Hilli, who loved the Annecy region, had already come in the past in the same camp where they had arrived a few days ago with a caravan.
And thats as far as they have come in over a week? Maillaud’s having a laugh!
There is little doubt that a covert investigation by a number of those 20 Intelligence Officers present on the day is going on around Europe right now, some poor unsusepcting soul is being followed right now! and the French and UK police dont even know anything about it!
I was thinking before I wonder what the Investigations priorities are for the guys in Mi6, what way do they go about it, you can see some guy with a sweater vest and glasses shouting! “Willis get me all the film from this area and borders in the last 48 hours, Jones trace the cars owners and current whereabouts!, Carlise get me everything there is to know about Al Hilli’s family, job and history right down to what he eats for breakfast, Phone and computer records! Smithers get me a coffee! Move fast people”!
Could they also use Trapwire to track the family etc, im sure it was mentioned the other day in an article that they would be using new technology to track the cars number plates and people in the UK and Europe!
that they would be using new technology to track the cars number plates and people in the UK and Europe!/em>
It’s hardly new technology. Here in Germany, there are few places you can drive without your licence plate being automatically read (and stored). I assume it’s no different in France, and I’d bet that the UK as a nation of CCTV-lovers has these systems all over the place
http://www.vitronic.de/en/traffic-technology/alpr/
I don’t know whether those licence-plate data are routinely shared between countries. I would assume they are not, because – at least here in Germany – they are not even routinely shared between the individual German states. Thus, the trouble for the investigators will be to pull information from all those disparate databases together in order to perform their “convoy analysis.”
Very interesting technology, actually
http://blog.ipl.com/tag/convoy-analysis/
Trapwire is a new tech though and would give them the information very quickly you could even watch their every movements put together by each Camera they pass, it would include Phone calls emails and any other conversations picked up on their journey!
An interesting piece on Maillaud and how French prosecutors are trained to handle the media
http://www.ledauphine.com/isere-sud/2012/09/18/procureur-et-communicant
I think a key area is B Martin’s involvement or lack there of. Given that his house, which he has owned since at least June/July (from date stamps on photos on website), is only 7.8km from the scene. Given that the scene of crime is pretty much the nearest cycle way up the hills from his house and given that we know he’s been into cycling for years….then it seems to me to be more likely that he is not involved. The alternative is that the whatever govt. agency was very lucky to have an operative in the area, or that the incident took place in that area due to his involvement. Both of these latter alternatives seem,while possible, more improbable. I’m surprised that more hasn’t been given to the fact that himself and his wife have owned a house 3km from Chevaline for some time.
If you rule out his involvement the picture becomes clearer.
A possible scenario is that Sylvain Mollier was giving usb and/or material and possibly receiving money from Al-Hilli. A govt. source got wind of this and wanted to collect exchange material as well as kill perpetrators.
We know there are possible reasons for Saad Al-Hilli requiring money:
Inheritance tax
Pay for his half of inherited property
To invest in family business in Iraq
So if the opportunity for Al-Hilli existed for him to
(a) make money and
(b) help the political cause / homeland
and if he could achieve both objectives by receiving money for his efforts in furthering the cause of nuclear production in Iran, then he would have motive for doing so.
[An aside… if the exchange involved USB key then it is likely Al-hilli would have had a laptop with him to quickly examine contents. It is possible that the kill team wanted to get that as well as money and USB (and/or material) before departing. This could have lead to the treatment of the eldest girl who may have been used to persuade the handing over of all exchange elements]
If, as is this premise, you rule out B. Martin, you might accept his account and then the scenario of a passenger (the shooter) being dropped off from a motor bike (or 4WD) to hide in woods and the supporting 4×4 blocks-in the BMW at the crucial moment (consistent with the BMW being in reverse, attempting to go around 4WD). Shooter then leaves via 4WD.
Al-Hilli would not have expected to be killed before he left for France (although he knew a threat existed) so he would not have cleaned all traces from his PC’s at home as he could have. It is most likely that there will be a wealth of information on the PC’s in his house and in the garden shed that will reveal much more in relation to his covert and business activities which would provide countless more leads. Without this we are shooting in the dark to a large extent. We would need someone (a journo?) to get info out of police to get further on this.
Well, the extant technology is scary enough
http://www.ipl.com/papers/IP%20ANPR%20product%20brief.pdf
but I suppose that if you bolted face-recognition technology and mobile-phone tracking on to that, you’d come up with something even scarier. Plus hotel reservations, plus airline passenger data, plus whatever other data you can get hold of.
I am pretty sure that something like that already exists. In fact, I heard that the Dubai police used software sourced from the UK to track the movements of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s killers, and that the Israelis were completely taken by suprise by how quickly and comprehensively they were “outed”.
@ferret
Whereas what the initial tweets are saying is that PD and his two friends proceeded upwards without RAFman (who’d buggered off downhill, with his hands covered in blood) to discover the horrific crime scene.
I know which version I believe!
=====
I’ve long had a suspicion that RAFman ™ aka PINOCCHIOman ™ was possibly scarpering, down the hill on SAH’s bike (that he’d ripped off the roof rack).
If he was SAH’s handler, SAH could have actually given RAFman ™ a *lift* UP to the lonely spot in the woods, for the rendezvous with Sylvain. At any rate, he ripped down SAH’s bike, or he was up there on his own bike, but we don’t know for sure because this HARD DATA ™ has purposely been concealed from us.
Sylvain arrives at the KILL ZONE ™ and the shooting starts. A kidon team. It is an ambush, and RAFman ™ is completely caught by surprise. Happens so quick he has no time to draw his gun, even if he is armed. The kidon team want to SEND A MESSAGE ™ and they succeed, as the massacre is on tee vee 24 x 7 for days.
RAFman ™ legs it, but happens upon PD and two friends. He has blood on his hands, and probably on his clothing too. He has been now been identified, and he is forced to stop (because he knows the three will find the ‘scene of quietus’ within seconds) and behave like ‘an idiot abroad’ … then he continues legging it back to his nearby chalet.
He mumbles pigeon French to PD and Co. (whereas he is probably fluent), and the story is later massaged and sanitised.
Ferret sez:
Whereas what the initial tweets are saying is that PD and his two friends proceeded upwards without RAFman (who’d buggered off downhill, with his hands covered in blood) to discover the horrific crime scene.
I know which version I believe!
=====
Me too.
Tweets are trezy importanto!
We know from THIS, last night, that RAFman ™ is an out and out liar:
*****
*****
No more far fetched than the Raf-man’s version that when he first saw Zainab he failed to spot here skull fracture or gunshot wound and thought her stumbling was a kids play acting game she was having with her sibling????
=====
This is bollocks because the ‘sibling’ (and who on earth uses the word sibling anyway these days?) was supposed to be hidden under dead granny’s skirts!
OOPS!
So RAFman ™ Inc. is lying, because when he first saw Zainab, he didn’t know her sister was in the car, if you follow my logic.
And if he DID know (perhaps he was telepathic , or a remote viewer , or knew Sylvain from the CC) Zainab had a little sister, why didn’t he try and find her, OR ALERT THE POLICE! That she was missing…
FAIRYTALE ™
*****
*****
=====
So was RAFman ™ doing a runner, and got caught? Remember we also have the white Peugeot 206 careering down the hill too, but that sounds like a red herring.
Zainab IMO was out for a pee, and wrong place wrong time caught a stray. (The torture angle is another issue. Zeena kidnapped, another issue). Starts screaming bloody murder after the shooting stops and whilst the bodies are being searched for a memory stick/s and/or samples. RAFman ™ spared because he is a spy, allegedly on the same side as the kidon team. Zainab is pistol whipped into silence. Team leaves post haste and RAFman ™ is left to pick up the pieces. Zeena, still in the car, also spared.
The kidon team, once they have killed SAH, number one priority to stop the car, can dispatch the rest at their leisure, shooting out windows from both sides, leaning in for brain double-taps. Zeena spared. RAFman ™ in such an ambush would have been powerless to stop two kidon shooters. Kidon teams operate in FOURS, so another could have held him at bay with a BERETTA 7.65mm ™ – I suspect he was NOT part of the kill team, otherwise we would never have heard of him, he would have vanished.
A good old British COCK UP ™ – which we specialise in! 🙂
He makes a mayday cal with his .mil satphone to Geneva or Paris. +20 .mil types from London are on their way, SDECE are also on their way. Both girls are hastily removed from the scene for RE-EDUCATION ™ – hence the missing eight hours for Zeena.
We KNOW they knew about Zeena because the first reports, plural, say so!
The first French folks on the scene take care of Zainab and Zeena, but they are radioed PDQ by SDECE to keep them in a safe place and don’t tell the media ANYTHING. But by the time this filters down to the commanders at the scene ( and I think there were three, local plod, local Gendarmes, local fire/ambulance), some have been blabbing.
M’LLAUD ™ also blabs, furious at this atrocity on French soil, he praises RAFman ™ but at the same time he fingers him, identifies him as an ex-RAF pilot, bike rider, retired, living locally part time.
So he puts LE BOOT ™ in, good and proper, and is later BOLLOCKED ™ by his SUPERIEURS ™ in GAY PAREE ™ and he desperately retracts/fudges what he has previously wibbled.
Now ON MESSAGE ™ my learned M’LLAUD ™ starts scattering RED HERRINGS ™ like he’s feeding the local mangy old cats at the dock (that’s US folks, MEEEOW! 😉 ) when the fishing boats get in! 🙂
ERGO
FAIRYTALE ™
@felix
19 Sep, 2012 – 7:47 am
Can anyone with good French translate the very fast speech of Maillaud at the beginning of this audio clip from the afternoon of 5 Sept?
http://www.franceinfo.fr/faits-divers/quatre-personnes-tuees-dans-les-hauteurs-du-lac-d-annecy-une-fillette-entre-la-729607-2012-09-05
//////////////
Here is a quick version, complete with a few gaps and some misplaced accents.
Vers seize heures, en fait, un témoin, un témoin a alerté les pompiers, un témoin cycliste qui était en train de pratiquer son sport favori et qui est arrivé de tout en haut de cet ??? de tout en haut de cette route forestière et qui a découvert un véhicule. Euh, dans le véhicule trois personnes, trois personnes mortes : le conducteur (un homme), deux femmes à l’arrière mortes. A côté du véhicule, un cycliste en tenue de cycliste. Il y avait eu la course un petit peu plus loin. Mort également. Et une jeune fille qui est également à proximité du véhicule qui est encore en vivant quand il est arrivé. Et autour, dedans ( ?) ce véhicule BMW matriculé en Grande Bretagne, un grand nombre de douilles. Voilà je dirai donc l’enquête qui était confie à la section de recherche de Chambéry, les techniciens … criminelles ?? sur place. On attend à ses services spécialisés lire ces gènes (?) qui arrivera dans la nuit. Il faut qu’on prenne absolument toutes les précautions en cette enquête soit de plus haut niveau de qualité possible donc ça va prendre des heures et en l’heure actuelle je ne peux guère vous en dit, vous en dit, la montage.
So, towards 1600, a witness, a witness alerted the firefighters, a cyclist witness who was out doing his favourite/preferred sport and who arrived …, up this forest road and who found a vehicle. Um, in the vehicle, three people, three dead people: the driver (a man), two women in the back – dead. Next to the vehicle, a cyclist in cycling clothes/kit. He had done the race a bit further? = had overtaken a bit earlier. Also dead. And a young girl who was also near the vehicle who was still alive when he arrived. And around, inside?, this BMW vehicle, registered in Britain, a large number of [bullet/cartridge] cases. So, I’ll say that this inquiry has been entrusted to the investigation section in Chambéry which has criminal investigation technicians. We wait for their specialist services to read the ??? which will arrive during the night. It is necessary to take all precautions of the highest quality in this investigation so it is going to take some time and at the moment I am scarcely able to give you the timetable [=montage].
Hic! 🙂
Just done a long’ish IMHO fairly important post, awaiting moderation.
May try and repost.
@ Roger
That is sound reasoning IMHO, but it doesn’t account for the women and the child being shot. Trained assassins employed by nation states just don’t do that. Only psychopaths do.
However, there is a potential explanation that would account for that: If a nation state wanted to get rid of AH and SM in a hurry, it is entirely possible, even likely, that they would have contracted this hit out to whatever organized-crime figures they knew in the area. The violent criminals hired for this assassination then got carried away and chose to kill everybody in sight rather than just the targets.
Hi Roger
How do you explain this epic boo-boo by RAFman ™ ?
Re-post from last night.
No more far fetched than the Raf-man’s version that when he first saw Zainab he failed to spot here skull fracture or gunshot wound and thought her stumbling was a kids play acting game she was having with her sibling????
=====
This is bollocks because the ‘sibling’ (and who on earth uses the word sibling anyway these days?) was supposed to be hidden under dead granny’s skirts!
OOPS!
So RAFman ™ Inc. is lying, because when he first saw Zainab, he didn’t know her sister was in the car, if you follow my logic.
And if he DID know (perhaps he was telepathic , or a remote viewer , or knew Sylvain from the CC) Zainab had a little sister, why didn’t he try and find her, OR ALERT THE POLICE! That she was missing…
FAIRYTALE ™
This was dated 8/9/12 This guy was there by accident the day after the incident ?
Alain Bauer, Professor of Criminology, chairman of the orientation of the National Observatory of Delinquency and Chairman National private security activities was yesterday at Chambéry to meet Michel Ferrero, National President of the union security companies and to visit his “old friend” Louis Besson, current president of Chambéry metropolis, both close associates of Michel Rocard.
To return to the killing of Horses in Haute-Savoie and the girl found alive in the car at the end of eight hours, he had to touch the crime scene?
“How we manage the crime scene? This is a recurring debate in the Anglo-Saxon world. At the time of the discovery of the bodies, knowing that there was first a witness, then fire, then a doctor, then the police, then finally technicians IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie) , well you try to find what is the immediate priority.
Priority in Anglo-Saxon countries is whether we can save someone and do not believe those who have checked before you. There may have been there, too much trust between all actors on the stage. That said, quite frankly, nobody can give lessons to police in this case. Everyone could have exactly the same error, in France and abroad. ‘
According to you, what was the slaughter origin?
“It is rather a business professional (s) because it is a settling of accounts: path isolated hopeless. I do not believe in chance of elimination, but obviously it was done by “bad” professionals. We feel that this case has an unfinished side, technically speaking.
@Felix
Thanks for a great link, by the way.
Did BM mention having blood all over his hands??
http://www.leprogres.fr/france-monde/2012/09/12/philippe-d-on-a-eu-peur-que-le-tueur-soit-toujours-la
I’ve just re-read the French version and was struck by the numerous discrpancies between PD’s version and RAFman’s.
Here’s a translation of PD’s recollection of the day, given “a week after” the events, published on Sept 12:
‘We left by car to take a hike in the Bauges’, he remembers. ‘Normally, we would go up around the other side (Savoie). It’s the first time that we came up via the combe d’Ire. While going up the little forest road, we met a man who caught our attention. His hands were covered in blood. It made us realise [or, he gave us to understand] that something serious had happened a little further up. Clearly, he wanted to sound the alarm but either he didn’t have a mobile phone, or a signal. The Martinet parking area wasn’t far, so we called the fire brigade and went up to see what we could do.’
‘There was no sign of life. We called out, tapped on their hands, but not a single victim moved, so we didn’t approach the vehicle. If we had heard the smallest sound or seen the slightest sign that any of the victims were alive, we would have rushed to their aid. Frankly we were sure that everyone was dead.’
After the shock, worry. ‘The scene was terrible. Everything was frozen. Then we began to wonder if the murderer was still there, somewhere. We hadn’t met a soul on the way up. We didn’t know where the shots had come from. We wanted to save our lives. We came down to the first houses of Chevaline to wait for the rescue services who arrived very quickly.’ First the firemen, then the police. The three witnesses were then interviewed.
The discrepancies that I can spot are:
1. RAFman says he and PD went up to the scene, and doesn’t mention the two women who were with PD. PD implies that he and the two women went up, and doesn’t mention RAFman.
2. RAFman doesn’t mention his hands were covered in blood. PD says it quite clearly.
3. RAFman says that after he and PD went up the scene, PD went down to call the rescue services. PD says he made the call before going up.
4. PD doesn’t mention a revving engine, the smell of burning rubber, or the overheated engine oil. RAFman claims to have switched off the engine before PD got there but I would have expected the smells to linger and be noticeable.
5. According to RAFman Zainab was unconscious but still breathing. PD is quite clear there was no movement whatsoever.
6. RAFman claims as far as I recall that they started to look for the killer(s) in the woods. PD doesn’t say anything of the kind, they got scared and went straight down.
Overall, PDs account seems fluid and natural and he doesn’t make himself out to be any kind of hero.
I realise some of these differences *may* have innocent explanations but I’m including them all as together they give a bigger picture of oddities.
What have I missed?
@Katie
Re: Mollier
Well the country with a known program of weapons of mass scientist destruction is also strongly suspected of killing Gerald Bull of Iraqi super-gun and missile-enhancing fame. So “western” targets have also been killed.
What have I missed?
An overheated engine cooling down makes these cracking noises as the hot (and thus expanded) metal recontracts. If I stumbled upon the scene of a multiple murder, those cracking noises would frighten me, and I would remember that fright afterwards. Yet PD doesn’t mention that, indeed talks of not having heard “the smallest sound”.
@anders
While anything is possible re B Martin I think the discovery that they owned a house very close to the area and had been trying to rent it makes the idea that he was sent on a surveillance or other mission much less likely. Besides, there are pictures of bikes in the rental photos, not to mention that the reg. of the car in the rental photos are not blocked out. I would have thought that an agent would never allow their car with reg to be published on net. I also think you are possibly over analysing the semantics of “sibling” etc. He could just be verbalising an impression he got of a child stumbling backwards from his pov 20 metres away. His account is probably more formalised after hours of questioning about it. So rather than explaining “sibling” can you explain the ownership of the house in the area, and if so, how likely is the explanation versus other scenarios. There is evidence that makes it unlikely for B Martin to be agent provacateur or otherwise directly involved. Also, if you take that view, then you get a clearer picture using his evidence and discounting him as a key player.
@James
There is a photo of a Dr Suhaila Al-Safar with the deputy prime minister of Bahrain here
http://www.bna.bh/portal/photos/344184/344185
….who is clearly the same one as this dentist/sculptor in Doha with the Qatari Minister of Culture. Same woman, who, intriguingly, has spent time in Paris.
All very interesting. Relevance? Unknown. No mention of Sweden.
http://doha2010.softarisit.com/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=507
@Anders
Fully agree, RAFman is most likely SAH’s handler and was a first-hand witness of the murders, held either at gunpoint or with arms pinned, and he saw both the team of killers and their vehicles.
This accounts for him being “terrified of being identified” afterwards. It also accounts for him claiming not to have heard any shots (“pah pah pah pah pah” style) when he should have.
It also accounts for his contrived, wooden performance on TV.
It also accounts for his too-quick denial of being able to identify anyone, nor the vehicles, while being quite certain the motorcyclist was wearing a helmet. (How?)
It also accounts for the police searching for a black 4×4 Pajero with UK plates while claiming it had nothing to do with these killings (so it wouldn’t point back to RAFman).
And it accounts for another small detail to leak out via a BBC presenter, that the motorbike was a scrambler. Where did he get that from?
Overall, your version is the most persuasive I have heard yet, and accounts for pretty much all the known facts as reported at the time, and as they changed over the course of the past week or so.
Bravo!
@Peter
> That is sound reasoning IMHO, but it doesn’t account
> for the women and the child being shot. Trained assassins
> employed by nation states just don’t do that.
> Only psychopaths do
I’m not sure about that. There are many nation states who have accepted collateral damage with little apparent justification.
It could be that somehow the mission would have been compromised by witness testimony (i.d. vehicles / shooters). Also the assassins could have been mercenaries given pretty blunt instructions.
Besides if you follow the psychopath line then you would expect more anomalies (e.g. no silencer, less professional looking hit, no explanation why al-Hilli family were waiting – which they clearly were given the amount of time they were there for).
@Peter
Thanks, good point
@Roger
That claim of RAFman’s that he saw Zainab stumbling around “as if playing with a sibling” has puzzled me ever since I heard it.
Apart from being a very strange thing to say altogether, as Anders has already observed, if she were badly wounded, shot in the shoulder, fractured skull, etc, I would’ve thought that unless RAFman was on the scene within seconds of the shooting she would already be down.
BUT if he were on the scene that early, he would’ve seen the killers and heard the shots.
So it doesn’t make sense to me.
Maybe someone with more experience of wounds and the wounded will contradict me?