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.
@Ferret
The video of the deputy mayor is still there – just takes a long time to crank up. Try a new window? The speaker is Michel Chevallier “who had the sad role to inform his companion (Claire Schutz?) of his death…Sylvain spent his life among his family, factory and his favorite sport, cycling…..”(my interpretation of google trans and the French) The article is in L’Alsace Sept 7.
http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2012/09/07/le-cycliste-a-peut-etre-sauve-la-vie-de-la-petite-fille-blessee
is where the family of SM announced it was shutting itself off from the media. Likewise at the “funeral”, free of media, «qu’ils souhaitaient tenir strictement à l’écart», a indiqué la société chargée de l’organisation des funérailles. (Ils presumably being the family) [Le Progres, 17 Sept]
Repeat: Citizens of France, Sweden and the UK allegedly murdered in cold blood. The media in all three countries not interested any more. Funny old world.
I am not convinced that the hunter is our SM. The Forestry office in Mandeure is in the same road as he lives. The cap on the dashboard though is uncanny.
Thanks felix. Plus ca change etc etc.
@Anders7777
“What I don’t see is why the offing off Sylvain and SAH (not forgetting the unfortunate father)?”
I don’t think S.Mollier’s father died recently…
probably a misunderstanding.
French news piece about Mollier ~ 10 days ago, re father: “mort aujourd’hui ” or “dead today” really means ‘nowadays’ or ‘these days’
Interesting AP video I hadn’t seen before – Nick Clegg doing the midnight talking head. (thanks to Daily Mirror
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTr172_XTxg
It’s also at AOL: “Girl Spent 8 Hours Beneath Bodies in French Alps”
At 0.30 check the shot through the window of the red emergency vehicle – seems strange that someone is lying on the floor as it descends in the darkness!
Someone asked where did the flowers come from at the car park?
Answer – British journalists brought the biggest – for photo opps I guess.
Jean-Marc Ducos @jeanmarcduc
#Tuerie#Haute-Savoie. Les plus gros bouquets de fleurs apportés par des journalistes britanniques pour la photo sur la scène du crime!
Retweeted by William Molinié
12:30 AM – 9 Sep 12 ·
William Molinié himself was interviewed in the AP video at YouTube “Searching for clues in the French Alps “(what is that at 0.11 in that video – burnt/oil patch in the car park??
Molinie is another who has lost interest in the case..
@Anders7777
“What I don’t see is why the offing off Sylvain and SAH (not forgetting the unfortunate father)?”
I don’t think S.Mollier’s father died recently…
probably a misunderstanding.
French news piece about Mollier ~ 10 days ago, re father: “mort aujourd’hui ” or “dead today” really means ‘nowadays’ or ‘these days’
=====
Hmmmm
Thanks terry
My French is lousy these days
I’m sure I’ve seen reports of the father dying in several places…
Molinie is another who has lost interest in the case..
=====
Somebody is doing a good job!
Oops!
More Iranian scientists murdered…
http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2012/09/23/the-picture-that-made-everyone-laugh-at-expense-of-israel
Go figure
The way the wind blows, I guess
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/09/20/3107411/cheryl-saban-to-represent-us-at-un-general-assembly
Ww3
http://edition.presstv.ir/iphone/detail.aspx?id=263155
Small snip
Israel is stepping up threats of carrying out a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear energy facilities before the US presidential election on November 6. However, the US opposes any Israeli military action at the current juncture.
Israeli threats are based on the unsubstantiated claims that the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic have been diverted to the acquisition of military nuclear capability.
Hotting up
Blumenthal and Lieberman. Lol. Must be the guys kempe sez have disbanded.
The US Senate voted 90-1 early Saturday on a non-binding resolution to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Voting against the resolution was Sen. Rand Paul, arguing that the bill was a de-facto declaration of war.
The measure, which was introduced several months ago by Senators Lindsey Graham, Bob Casey and Joe Lieberman, supports continuing to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The resolution advocates using methods other than containment to stop Iran, including exerting economic and diplomatic pressure. Senate Joint Resolution 41 “rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” Senators expressed their fears regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“We know that Iran would create access for terrorists – access for them – to these nuclear weapons, making the Middle East a nuclear tinbox,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said before the Senate. “We cannot trust this regime. We know that fact beyond any potential doubt.”
The bill states that it should not be misinterpreted as an endorsement for military force or war. But as the only senator to vote against the resolution, Paul argued that the resolution would eventually lead to war with Iran.
“A vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of preemptive war,” Paul said before the Senate.
Passage of the resolution comes at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been pressuring the US for an answer as to what would prompt a US-led military strike against Iran.
Currently, the US is already imposing tough sanctions on Iran to limit its oil sales, hurt its economy and make it problematic for Iran to finance its nuclear enrichment program.
Iran has continuously insisted that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful, civilian ends.
@Terry
Thanks. Cleared up.
Wonder why the Daily Mirror’s (identical) aerial photos of the BMW are credited to Phil Harris in this case. Released at 6.41pm, 6th Sept according to their daily blog. Released by whom? No agency noted. Unusual. I have only just realised that this is a third aerial photo, shot pretty-well front on, facing the BMW.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/french-alps-shooting-live-blog-1307082#mm
The Mirror used the standard passenger side Roland Hoskins photo for its front page on sept 7. yet it credited it to Phl Harris! what is going on?? The Telegraph credits the photo to Julian Simmonds.
Over at Icke someone did finger Hoskins as being rather rare but assumed wrongly that the Harris aerial photo was Barcroft/Abaca.
The Phil Harris photo was used by JDD,Le Journal du Dimanche,[paywall] 16 Septembre. I can’t quite make out the credit in the screenshot of the article at {{http :// http://www.arretsurimages.net/vite.php?id=14452}}
Barcroft Media/ABACA supplied the fortuitous BM Triathlon photos…. of which more below….
Psy-op.
whoops, sorry two links above.
This page has pointed out the source of the BM triathlon photos.
It would be interesting to know when they appeared at the Barcroft site.
http://www.arretsurimages.net/vite.php?id=14452
@Mod – please delete the above post
Correct Brett Martin portfolio at Barcroft Media is here:
http://www.barcroftmedia.com/index.php?10049716221355947120.00003926834138617917511624092012053431
[Mod/Jon: done]
Interesting take by Daniel Schneidermann on sept 7 – he thought it odd that the Central European Bank’s takeover of European debt was submerged by the killings, yet without shocking images and four times the coverage given to the ECB.
http://www.rue89.com/2012/09/07/tuerie-de-chevaline-vs-bce-questions-sans-reponse-235157
I don’t think he is saying that the incident at Combe d’Ire was to bury ECB news.
I suspect however the French national TV coverage was to get the official story over and implanted.
The silence over SM since reinforces his significance.
Extraction of the AH family, but not of SM? Anyone been to the pharmacy lately?
@Kathy
Your “suspicious” message finally got through moderation!
😀
“Odd to me that SM lived almost 4 hours away by car from where he was supposed to have worked, at Cezus Ugine…”
But don’t forget his new partner had a pharmacy in the village where they lived.
Ah… yes… OK… thanks.
I was wondering how he’d commute almost 4 hrs each way, till I remembered he was on 3 years (unpaid) paternity leave.
Perhaps they planned to move nearer to Ugine when his leave ended. Or change jobs. Who knows.
But WAIT A MINUTE…
Chevaline is 3 and a half hours away from Mandeure by car, 165 miles according to Google Maps.
So how could SM be on a supposed cycling training run from his home in Mandeure?
Have we got the right SM?
@Kathy
My reply also got caught in the spam filter!
I think it’s something to do with the profession of his new partner, won’t mention it here so this message doesn’t get caught as well.
If you think about the amount of unsolicited emails concerning the things people in her profession sell, it’s not surprising that a spam filter would pick it up!
(Goodness it’s hard not to say it but still convey the meaning…)
Off Topic
Ecuador offers to move Assange to Sweden
http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/world-fwire/ecuador-offers-to-move-assange-to-sweden-465010.html
Just search “Brett Martin” in the Barcroft site. There are no other photos there relating to the Steyning Triathlon. They seem to have been supplied to “assist” the media.
More nonsense in the French media…notice the sandal at 0.36 in the “crime scene”, video here
http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2012/09/07/selon-un-voisin-le-conducteur-connu-des-services-de-renseignement-britanniques
It is ludicrous.
@Bluebird
Thanks for spelling it out for me – it certainly is an interesting “coincidence” at the very least!
Somehow, though, this doesn’t smell like a bribery deal gone wrong to me. I would have thought those sorts of things would usually happen over boardroom tables and in 5 star hotels… and surely as you say, it would be politicians who would be the ones to bribe?
I think last night’s revelation by Iran would be much more likely to be connected…
Perhaps SM had learned something about the shipment of sabotaged equipment to Iran via his colleagues at Ugine, and had warned SAH who had, in turn, told the Iranians on his fairly recent visit to Qom?
So SM and SAH were fed some more “bait” and when they fell for it they were offed by Mossad? (Along the lines of Jon x2’s narrative.)
And with the UK not in the know, hence spook scramble from Paris.
I can’t explain how or why there would be a link between SM and SAH in the first place, though. Perhaps via J-C?
And SM’s motive could be explained by his membership of the LaRouche-backed party, namely to mess with the USA’s global agenda and help Iran fight back?
Nothing to see here, part 94
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/societe/20120907.OBS1636/chevaline-manuel-valls-prend-la-defense-de-la-gendarmerie.html
Minister of the Interior (Homeland security) Manuel Valls says the police did an exemplary job in not (allegedly) finding the younger Al-Hilli daughter for 8 hours. Short video clip to accompany.
An unnecessary and unjustified controversy…the police, investigators, technicians, doctors have done a very high quality job and I trust them to continue their work,”
Move along now please.
Ferret, just so you know, there is an open ‘Assange case’ thread on this blog.
“They won’t use the Koran as the basis for their national state laws, so won’t be a threat to western interest-charging bankers – which is what the original poster was getting at, as far as I recall.” Ferret.
But Saudi Arabia, together with Israel the staunchest ally of the USA/UK in the region, has the most extreme Sharia laws of all Muslim states (except Taliban-run Afghanistan in the late 1990s/early 2000s); it is a draconian police state; and it deals fully with/in the world economy – it ‘saved’ the UK from economic collapse in 1973 (Heath Govt), since when… we have been in hock to the feudal regime – Al Yamamah (‘Oos Yer Mama?)!
Western military capitalism as a geopolitical entity has never given a toss about democracy, indeed often it has preferred to deal with dictators because it simplifies matters and ensures ‘the people’ don’t get in the way of making a profit. They only want rid of nationalist/oppositional dictators (oppositional, in the sense that they do not align with all the geostrategic economic goals of the Western imperial elites and/or are too close to/ are strategic outposts of the Russia/China axis).
‘Democracy’ is that context becomes a means to the end to which you alluded – i.e. hegemony. But if democracy leads to opposition (eg. South America, 2000s; Iran, 1953), then dire consequences would be likely to follow (South America’s social democratic experiment has survived so far because US attention has been on the Middle East and to some extent because they have united in an economic block).
It’s got nothing directly to do with banking interest, beyond the obvious ubiquitous global banking issue of debt repayments – that’s just a religious trope put forward by Islamists. It might have more to do with the dollar as currency wrt oil, if anything.
Islamists are used as tactical stormtroopers by the USA/UK et al, as we saw in Libya, Afghanistan (1980s) and as we are seeing wrt Syria. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the direct ideological/strategic backers/bank-rollers of the Sunni Islamists as a military force right across ‘MENA’ (‘Middle East and North Africa’), Iran, of the Shia Islamists. Just as the Pakistani state plays a double-game with NATO wrt their creation, the Islamist paramilitaries, so too with the USA/UK et al and Saudi Arabia.
Thanks Suhayl, for that well-worded and well-reasoned analysis.
I stand corrected.
🙂
The total lack of photos of Sylvain Mollier and of Mrs Al-Hilli and her mother is interesting; if we’ve had pics of Mr Al-Hilli and even of his daughters (faces blanked out, quite rightly, as they are minors), why not of the two adult women? No family group photos? She was a dentist – there will be a graduation photo, at least, a class photo from university, something, someone must have, somewhere. There will be her patients, saying she was a lovely dentist and did their teeth really well. Her colleagues? Fellow-students? Her friends? Her neighbours – no-one talks about her, only about her husband. No gossip? Her hairdresser? Her local shopkeeper? Her daughter’s school? Fellow-parents? But no. Tabloid silence. How odd.
Also, it was reported that Mollier’s family wanted him cremated but they were prevented from doing so – presumably in case of the potential later need for exhumation in a murder case. Privacy is one thing, which must be respected. But this is a public interest case, with nuke and satellite industries, Middle Eastern links and goodness knows what else. It all seems very odd. It differs, say, from the Gareth Williams case and the Alexander Litvinenko case, in which we had lots of family (and Litvinenko himself) coming out and speaking with the media and lots of photos too (because, allegedly, in the latter case, the Russians dunnit). It’s a little bit more like the David Kelly situation, where the family hardly said anything and if they did, what they said seemed almost fearfully supportive of the narrative dispensed by the state. Has the Mollier family been told to shut up (or else)?
The oddness resides in the omission.
Much appreciated, Ferret.
I agree Suhayl, it is very, very surprising.
As far as I know, France does have some privacy laws that protect people from newspaper invasion, so that might explain some of the silence surrounding the Mollier family.
But that wouldn’t explain the lack of even one photo of Mrs Al-Hilli or her mother, and the lack of comment about her from friends, associates, and neighbours.
The silence is deafening.
@ferret
I leave the speculations about who did it to others.
All i am doing is trying to collect facts, links, coincidences (sic!) and logic, while i am trying to sort out unlogic press releases. I am glad when some of my search is successful and welcome and when it supports others to find the truth.
However, i dont speculate about “who did it” simply because i dont care.
I am trying to find connections between the links we already know.
Btw, does anybody know the name of sylvain’s widow? Her first name would be great to know for searching. Her girlname (surname) would be perfect. Thanks for info if somebody knows it.
Suhayl
The two female victims were shia.
There might be two reasons why there are no photos:
1. There dont exist any photos of shia women due to religious rules.
2. The press respects religion and does not release pictures of their faces.
As for sylvain the lack of released pictures is surprisingly odd. Must be security or secret service demands.
Blue,
Perhaps he is married to the mayor. The mayor must at least know him intimately to be the person who identified Sylvain’s body.
See 12.30 GMT in this article:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/print/311209/
http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/news/britain-france-germany-call-iran-230619989.html
I doubt very much that Siemens knew that Iran had their equipment, this was probably ordered via a front company, explosives added and then sent out.
There have been many cases of Iranian Scientists disapearing and then resurfacing in the US – Part of the Brain Drain program (you can hear the Ipcress file music now), most of these stories are straight out of a spy movie eg: Amri went to saudi on a pilgramige and was next seen months later in the US, Asgari who travelled to Turkey and has never been seen again (rumoured to be in the US helping the CIA with their inquiries).
Dirar Abu-Sisi was kidnapped whilst on a train in the Ukraine and is still being held in Israel – “He never reached Kiev. During the night, three men, two of them wearing Ukrainian military uniforms, boarded his compartment, flashed a badge from the Security Service of Ukraine, and demanded that Abu Sisi leave with them. At around 1am, they forced him off the train”.
And then of course we have the dramatic killings of other scientists in Iran with magnetic bombs etc also killing members of the family!
48 Iranian pilgrims kidnapped just outside damascus said to be spies!
The cold war with Iran has started and think the Al-Hillis are connected!
@straw
Negative!
Mayor of ugine is franck lombard and mayor of chevaline is didier berthollet.
Both of them are guys, but sylvain had 3 children so he was most likely not gay.