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.
Re Brett Martin’s holiday home, about which there was some discussion earlier…
The house is owned by his company, Silver Fern (Sussex) Ltd (hence the name of the website advertising it). Silver Fern has, in the last two years, expanded its operations from just Futures & Options Trading to include Property Investment.
The money to finance it all has come from the directors alone, who are Mr & Mrs Martin, who’ve sunk £660k between them into it. There’s no mention of any interest repayments in the company accounts, so it looks like they must’ve put £640,000 into the company themselves as cold hard cash. If there was a bank loan there would be interest payments in the accounts and there are none.
Of this £600k, about £360k is in freehold property (the house in France, maybe others?) and the rest is in “stock” (prob futures/options) and a small amount in the bank.
The big question in my mind is where did the £660k come from to finance the company? And, why start up a company to invest in futures and options, the riskiest form of investment on the stock market?
@anders
But when you are talking about Iraqis you are talking about enforced emigration. Most of them would prefer to be in their own country but it doesn’t really exist any more. Soon we will be getting a flood of Syrians. Maybe if the UK stopped destroying other people’s countries we would not have so many coming here.
>“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
Has anyone corrected this location? Looking at photos it seems the carpark/layby was on a straight stretch of road. Not on a bend as shown on the location from the above link.
*Should be £640k invested by the Martins. Variously mentioned above as £660k, £640k, and £600k. Sorry for any confusion. Correct figure is £640k.
@Guinness
Had one yesterday in your honour Anders
😀
@Blue Bear
Extraction
I mean they weren’t really killed at all, just made to look like it, so they could disappear and get new identities.
@ ferret
Re the £600k – An inheritance perhaps? Previous property investments etc maybe.
@katie
I think your prejudice against Iraqis stems from a lack of knowledge about them. I have noticed that you have made a few comments which displayed this. For example, you commented on how unusual it was for the brother, Zaid, to have an Irish wife.
Well I know of at least three Irish women married to Iraqis (including Margaret Hussaini, the aid worker who was killed in dubious circumstances during the war) and there will be many more. There are many British, American, German, Spanish, Maltese and others married to Iraqis that I know of. So not that unusual at all really.
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I prefer to be UNMARRIED ™
I have been USED AND ABUSED ™
By FOUR sodding wives!
Eight DOUBLE-TAPS!
O!
For a BERETTA! 😉
Any of you sleuths fancy monitoring the unfolding of WWIII? A strange absence of shipping has just been noted in the Red Sea:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
@ ferret
I mean they weren’t really killed at all, just made to look like it, so they could disappear and get new identities.
…………
Would it not be easier to have rolled the car off a cliff, and/or set fire to it? I’m sure there are a few better ways to make it look like an accident rather than a mass killing.
Foolishly I’d never thought of it (them not being killed/there at all). With the talk of passports and the fact that the whole family was there I’d always assumed they were fleeing for some reason though, they just never got the chance.
@ anders
four wives? Jeezus Christ.
Have you guys seen that the Al-Hilli’s had a house in Gironde?
http://www.sudouest.fr/2012/09/20/tuerie-de-chevaline-la-famille-al-hilli-avait-une-maison-en-gironde-826583-3131.php
Oh, in case anyone hadn’t seen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9545597/Armada-of-international-naval-power-massing-in-the-Gulf-as-Israel-prepares-an-Iran-strike.html
What was the name of the guy who was in charge of the training session that happened on 7/7? He was interviewed on Fivelive.
@ roger
I wouldn’t even keep sheep in that!
Roger@
This video shows that there’s a bend just before the carpark-scene. And the carpark is placed on the right side of the road seen from the ex-RAF-cyclist. It is also shown that the tire wasn’t flat (1:39)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k9nu3xv4B2k#!
@Clark looks like they’ve shut the straight. It would be nice but impractical if they showed where the carrier groups were for reference.
Clark
“Any of you sleuths fancy monitoring the unfolding of WWIII? A strange absence of shipping has just been noted in the Red Sea”
Yep, The Charles De Gaulle is coming through ….with it’s “protection” !!!
Since this thread has easily surpassed the next longest, the locally infamous “9/11 thread”, I thought I’d post something on that topic.
This is from the Hacker Richard Stallman:
http://stallman.org/articles/september11-response.html
Hope St Malachy was wrong….!
US citizens:
Phone your congresscritter and say, “No war with Iran”.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
@Dopey
Re the £600k – An inheritance perhaps? Previous property investments etc maybe.
It doesn’t make sense either way.
1) Inheritance
If you suddenly inherited £640k would you invest it in Futures & Options, the most risky investments on the stock exchange? With no experience as a trader??? Damn fool if you did.
2) What previous property investments? If so, why did they suddenly stop for four years and put it all into Futures & Options, the most risky investments on the stock exchange? With no experience as a trader??? Ditto.
Neither way makes sense of a seemingly sensible man, RAF trained and all, keep cool in a crisis, assess everything to the nth degree. No siree.
Would it not be easier to have rolled the car off a cliff, and/or set fire to it? I’m sure there are a few better ways to make it look like an accident rather than a mass killing.
Who said it was supposed to look like an accident? It was supposed to get publicity, so everyone would notice, and few would question. Certainly achieved that.
I’m not saying this is what happened, I just think it’s an interesting angle that shouldn’t be discounted.
@Roger
Perhaps you missed my question earlier?
I was wondering if you knew where Mollier worked at Ugine – you seemed pretty sure he was in the R&D dept…
@Clark for some reason I went straight to Hormuz. The Red sea is oddly quiet might be a data error though that’s a big expanse of water to have 0 ships in.
Guy
Either that…or a “black out” !
@ferret
Standard MO
That’s really weird. You know that on 7/7 the emergency services in London were doing a drill for a terrorist attack on the tubes, and the places where the bombs went off were exactly the places where they were supposed to go off in the drill? They went from simulation to real-time, just like that.
Is this a standard MO? It’s beginning to look like it.
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Same thing happened on 911 AND Britvic, to name but two,
@Anders
Standard MO
Thanks for that, had forgotten that about 9/11, and hadn’t heard it re Britvic.
Roger@
This video shows that there’s a bend just before the carpark-scene. And the carpark is placed on the right side of the road seen from the ex-RAF-cyclist. It is also shown that the tire wasn’t flat (1:39)
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Canteen boy head fake! 😉
Peter Pow-pow-Power.
I think the Iran strike thing is a bluff, designed to put pressure on Iran in current talks (didn’t someone say there were talks going on now?)
If Israel were going to hit their nuclear facilities, they’d hardly give them warning, now would they?
The Iraq reactor strike was completely out of the blue…
And do they really have the capability to hit a facility dug into the side of a mountain?