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.
@ReCongito Have a look at this photo:
http://maxqubit.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/article-2199670-14dea43c000005dc-856_964x637.jpg
I can’t see the bend, certainly not by the car park which would be suggested from earlier Google Maps link.
@james bloody awful drone in the h preferred the fast cat. No catering facilities though
=====
James isn’t called “mister miniaturshic!” for nothin!!!
@Roger
You wrote:
On the other hand I do not think it is coincidence that Mollier worked at a leading nuclear R&D facility
He did? How do you know for sure?
Or was this just something you made up?
Oh one thing I forgot to mention. Was on Sleuthnet or similar earlier and there was a mention of SAH being in hospital in May for heart palputations….stress maybe ? There were no links back to the original article, so may just be noise again.
@roger
Thanks for the link of their french “house”.
However, quite honestly, not even my cats and dogs would like to live in that ruin. My goats did protest as well when i suggested them that ruin as their winter residence …
@Ferret
>I was wondering if you knew where Mollier worked at Ugine
> you seemed pretty sure he was in the R&D dept…
No. Don’t have any specific info on that. However I do know that while Cezus has 5 sites throughout France which work on Zirconium, it is the Ugine site that has the R&D centre. That is the one you would want to be accessing. I don’t know where Mollier worked – he could have been just a regular Joe and the whole thing one hell of a horror story for him, but it would certainly explain a lot if he was collecting info from the R&D section of his workplace.
@Roger the doger
Well? Why don’t you answer my question…???
@Roger
Ooops! Sorry… messages crossed there…
The Fench house looks nice.
A little work needed maybe.
Double glazing…and an inside spring to mind.
@Ferret
Sorry. I’m not always looking – I’m trying to finish off some work, so I don’t always keep up on the conversations.
@Roger
Agree… the “bend-thing” was just how I interpreted the chonology shown in the video. What confused me mostly in the video was that the carpark-scene would be at the right side of the road seen from the upcomming cycling ex-RAF. Until that I had thought that the carpark would be at the left side …. But again I haven’t been here for several days, so I probably missed alot!
Regarding my earlier point about what political implications there might be for the police if they suspected that the Chevaline murders might have an islamophobic background, I have subsequently tried to clarify that, but my comment took some time to pass moderation.
Allow me to clarify a little more why the *possibility* of these murders *perhaps* being motivated by islamophobic ressentiment occurred to me. Not long ago, a mysterious series of murders targeting “islamic-looking” men all over Germany (one of them in fact was a Greek) was cleared up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus_serial_murders
All the victims were shot at close range to the face with a silenced 7.65 pistol purchased in Switzerland. The murderers were hardcore right-wing terrorists, but, for many years, nobody but the terrorists themselves and a few of their helpers had the slightest inkling that these murders might be motivated by islamophobia. The police pursued pretty much every possible avenue of inquiry except that one.
Now, despite the superficial similiarities, namely a silenced 7.65 pistol purchased in Switzerland used against muslim victims, I am not for a moment suggesting that these two cases are related. They are almost certainly not related. However, still reading about that German murder series almost every day in the papers (it turns out that those killers were courted by the german security services and military intelligence, that some of their helpers were on the payroll of the security services and that a security service officer was actually present at the scene of one of the murders) makes us Germans perhaps more likely than citizens of other nations to *think of* islamophobia as a *possible* motive for such a seemingly inexplicable murder.
Anders: “Canteen boy head fake!”
I love you too Anders …. though I don’t understand your words 🙂
Just a most recent press release. Maybe not 100% on topic, but it shows what happens to MI6 agents once they change sides or once they work apparently for both sides:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/397108/Litvinenko-was-paid-MI6-agent.html
ReCog…
He’s in the pub ! He likes pubs. A lot !
Cezus has 5 sites throughout France which work on Zirconium, it is the Ugine site that has the R&D centre.
Yeah, I posted that on Sept 17 at 1.15am… which led GuyF to stumble on the Hafnium weapon thing (not literally!)
I was hoping you’d have some HARD DATA™ as you sounded so sure… as you say, he could’ve been an average Joe, but my money’s still on having access to top secrets, either because he worked in R&D or because he got access somehow.
I just don’t think stealing nuclear material gets you offed, usually, as the Tinners case seems to indicate…
@Peter
I don’t think it’s related to an islamophobic killer but your theory is just as good as any others in here
@Peter
Wow, I see what Anders™ means about NLP “waffle”… my mind was was almost numb by the time I’d finished reading your post! I’d certainly slipped into a comfortable sense of “everything’s all right”…
Then I noticed you casually slipped in a mention of “despite the superficial similiarities, a silenced 7.65 pistol purchased in Switzerland used against muslim victims”, and I woke right up!
a) There is no evidence the weapon was silenced
b) There is no evidence it was purchased in Switzerland
@Ferret: Standard MO? 7/7 in London, 9/11, Nunavut, Chinese drills near Japan, the drill in Hormuz. We’ll see.
Peter’s good.
@James
Yes I’ve noticed. He just loves pubs and red telephone booths
And in fact, in this case, witnesses heard about 30s of automatic gunfire, as I keep saying and as you keep (apparently) ignoring. There is even a video on the BBC of one of the eye witnesses. I posted a link to this ages back…
And, in the cases you mention, were whole families shot at the same time? With unrelated people? Or was it single targets, one at a time, as I understand from your post.
If so, then the MO is totally different…
What is in the R&D facility at Cezus Ugine? A beamline?
ReCognito
21 Sep, 2012 – 12:30 am
@Peter
I don’t think it’s related to an islamophobic killer but your theory is just as good as any others in here
………………….
No it’s not. Just because no theories are proven it doesn’t make this as likely as others. Just simpler and easier to deal with. And ignoring far more facts than other theories.
You can also see a fair amount of relevant expertise with guys like D Charquet:
https://www.google.ie/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=daniel+charquet+zirconium+nuclear+cezus&btnG=
If one wanted to get into the nuclear biz it may be no harm to be rubbing shoulders with the likes of him.
I know what Peter is “getting at” Every angle has to be looked at.
But it would have to be one very (VERY) lucky “Islamaphobe” to hang out at that car park…just on the off chance that an Islamic chap turns up !
And then five come at once !
Search 10:45 here: http://www.emrs-strasbourg.com/index.php?option=com_abstract&task=view&id=94&day=2010-06-08&year=2010&Itemid=99999999&id_season=2
It explains some of the research done by Cezus.
@Peter
I also notice you omitted to mention that the Bosphorus Serial Murders involved the use of TWO weapons, the second being a 6.35mm.
This was two weeks after the second murder, and the same guns as in the first case were used, a CZ 83 and a 6.35 mm gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus_serial_murders
Doesn’t really fit with your theory, does it?
Different MO, no relation.
Jeez…
Blue_Bear: “No it’s not. Just because no theories are proven it doesn’t make this as likely as others. Just simpler and easier to deal with. And ignoring far more facts than other theories.”
Perhaps it is because that most “facts” in this case are changing faster than the theories about them.
There have been a lot of inconsistencies. I wonder what the relationships between the various authorities are like atm. There must be lots of tensions between the British and French police.