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.
The other point is…
Why describe yourself as “one thing” when for 20 years you did another ????
@Katie
Thank you for proving my point.
🙂
Ali’s father was tortured and left “semi-paralysed” by agents of Saddam Hussein’s regime
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9530829/France-shooting-anguish-of-murdered-Britons-brother.html
@James we have been talking about Satellites for days? I think he did many jobs and one that was probaly top secret!
As for the rest of your gibberish ,I’m not getting into yet another of your spats.
Did you come up with that all by yourself?
🙂
The rest of my post was showing how, and why, SAH could have had the opportunity and motive to help Saddam achieve his nuclear ambitions.
(Again: on SAH’s frequent visits to Iraq as an adult, and with possible threats being made against his remaining family in Iraq.)
If you want to argue against my theory you are welcome to do so, but calling it “gibberish” only belittles you, not my argument.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/annecy003thresholdmaxim.jpg/
Reposting from last night, for the benefit of daytime readers. The source material (such as it is) is often a rich ground for finding nuggets. Again, sorry if I’m boring anyone.
Mr Al-Hilli worked for Surrey Satellites Technology Limited (SSTL)… Mr Al-Hilli was part of a team involved in an undisclosed project linked to European Aeronautic Defence and Space. The company designs and launches satellites for clients who want an “eye in the sky” for commercial, civil or security purposes.
Daily Telegraph, Sept 9, 2012
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9531436/France-shooting-was-Saad-Al-Hilli-assassinated-over-secret-defence-contract.html}
Strangely, this promising line of enquiry seems to drop without trace from the media until Sept 16, when it resurfaces but only in the Daily Mail:
Meanwhile, it is understood that Mr Al-Hilli worked for a satellite company which is being investigated by MI5 over fears it has been targeted by foreign agencies that want to develop hostile spying operations.
A cousin of Mr Al-Hilli, who was contacted in Baghdad but refused to be identified, said: ‘If you investigate and find out about Saad’s job, you will know who’s behind his killing.’
The cousin, who lives in Istanbul but was on a business trip to Baghdad, added: ‘We have been told by the police not to say anything more.’
It is believed that French police are examining Iraqi-born Mr Al-Hilli’s work with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
Intelligence sources said the company had ‘been of interest’ to MI5 for ten years during which time the security service had conducted surveillance operations on British-based individuals who had made contact with SSTL.
It provides state-of-the-art equipment that, in the wrong hands, could be turned into spy satellites. It also stores huge amounts of data obtained from many different satellite missions that might be of interest to another state or competitor company.
SSTL declined to discuss security surrounding the firm, but confirmed that Mr Al-Hilli had been working with it since November 2010 as part of a small team on an unnamed project.
Daily Mail Sept 16, 2012
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203934/Did-gunman-trail-Alps-massacre-victims-way-home-Britain.html?ito=feeds-newsxml}
The “trois heures” video
I have listened / watched it several times. I think he says either “vers vingt-trois heures” (all elided in one bit) – “about 11pm or “avant vingt-trois heures” – “before 11pm”. (Note: I can’t lip read, let alone lip-read French.) This is not so far from the “around midnight” reported here (some eight hours after the original 999 112 (= 999) Sapeurs-pompiers call)
Bloody interpreter – why can’t ITN use sub-titles.
No Ferret…. ….that proves that ……’ I ‘ DID NOT CLAIM IT….. as you stated I had.
Massive fail on your part.
Thanks Straw, I knew I’d read ’78 somewhere.
Al-Hilli snr, was high ranking member of the Ba-ath party , Shiite & from an influential family….I repeat, the Shiites were pushed out in favour of Sunni’s. Saddam wanted yes men.
“Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba’ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators.
These members were labelled “disloyal” and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason.
22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party formed the firing squad.
By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking Ba’ath party members had been executed.[38][39]”
Wiki.
Personally I find it totally incredible that AH would want to help such a man.
Secondly,the reason AH went back to Iraq two years ago, was to ask the present government to help him regain the family property. Whatever else he did has not appeared in the press.
Re the Iranian drone clone, the wikipedia article I read yesterday said that the downed US drone did not use GPS or satellite guidance as these are easily spoofed, instead it uses its own internal guidance systems.
I’m not sure, but I would be skeptical of that claim. The chief reason why the US are using drones is that calibrating the inertial nagivation system on a cruise missile takes six hours – by the time those things are ready to be launched, their targets are likely to have decamped already. Moreover, those drones are too cheap, too rough-and-ready to have that kind of technology on board (remember that the video stream that they fed back to base was transmitted unencrypted and was intercepted by jihadists?). However, they are certainly not *wholly* reliant upon GPS, either.
Anyway, to my mind, this particular topic would have been one that SAH knew a lot about, and probably the most valuable knowledge he possessed.
@ ferret
I’ve posted this link before. It quotes a friend who wanted to be identified only as “James”. I did wonder whether this was James B with the scooter company.
He’s an engineer too btw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9525672/France-shooting-Victim-Saad-Al-Hilli-was-a-bright-engineer-and-a-perfect-father-with-a-loving-family.html
Thanks, Ferret, see what you are about, and understand why.
The thing I think you are missing is that the cahoots by the British in the plot would be a most closely guarded secret, something that few more than MI6 Director Sawers, and a few of his colleagues knew about.
So what does the Foreign Office, the Defense Staff et al. do when they hear about the massacre of Brits on holiday in France – they simply panic.
You can see what happens, an extreme case, when the same agency is involved with one plot while another one is surprisingly sprung on it, and it too goes wild.
Just recall what the MoD did when it was outing Dr. Kelly when the Mossad cut the straps on poor Royal Cadet Stephen Hilder’s parachutes – a gratuitous plot to make the identical killing of German polician Owe Möllemann look commonplace.
The MoD did nothing about it, allowing the Humberside police investigate it where it occured without any direction when the TVP should have done it, with its assistance.
Letting the TVP do so was just asking for trouble, given what was planned for Kelly by his line manager, Dr. Bryan Wells.
The separation that the MoD displayed in the assassinations still plagues their solution.
In short, the need to know in covert operations and intelligence often leads to all kinds of surprises in their execution.
I wish I could use some of my Swedish contacts in this case but given my past dealings with them, I don’t believe I would get something from them, especially during working hours.
Reporters, as a breed, are most opposed to giving anything away, and I know this from having been one during two different periods in my life.
Might surprise Borgnäs, though, with a call this evening, and see how he reacts.
Anders,
Do you remember Bradstone?
@Everyone Bradstone was on the beginning of the David Icke thread and appeared to be spouting out nonsense/things that were too far fetched. Anders & Bradstone didnt get on.
Bradstone said Ok I wont post anymore.
More info came out and we all wanted Bradstone to comeback.
———————————————————–
This is what Bradstone posted at the time:
So what? Do we have any solid evidence that this was a real person yet? This is the security service we’re dealing with. They know how to create a false data trail and false identities – it’s child’s play to them. They’ve been doing it for decades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mace
This is what made me laugh.
Why?
{http://www.sstl.co.uk/about-sstl/management—ownership}
Yeah. Because it’s SO unlikely that British intelligence has any involvement or influence in this company (sarcasm).
See above. I see he has an OBE too. Evidently he’s served Her Majesty to a satisfactory level. I wonder what exactly he was rewarded for?
Then there is Professor Richard Crowther. Here is his work biography:
For the time being, we are relying on the word of characters like this, that Saad-al-Hilli was a real flesh and blood man who worked at their firm.
Last edited by bradstone; 06-09-2012 at 10:36 AM.
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1061028494
See page 5 comment 90
timed at 9.59 am on the 6/9/12
Also check posting 81 re possibility of Nato assassins
and post 31 re Mayor/Masonic links
@Katie
What it proves, in fact, is that you simply cannot accept that you wrote something that was wrong – and whenever I haul you up about it you go postal and attack me.
Normal people say “yes, you’re right, I was wrong now, thanks for that”, or words to that effect. Or simply “I stand corrected”, which is a phrase used here quite a lot, by me and others.
We are all searching, and we all make mistakes, but it’s important to recognise them when we make them otherwise others may (inadvertently) build on them.
So… “epic fail”, I believe, on your part?
I will address the rest of your post in my following post.
A recent article said an unnamed source within the police said they were looking at a family dispute, but not one about the will – it was a more far reaching (or words to that effect) dispute than that.
Saad had been to Iraq allegedly, to try to reclaim the family company. I’d love to know what that company is. I doubt you’d bother unless it was financially worth it so it must be a decent sized company surely. I wonder if family members are still involved in it over there.
Ricki…
@James we have been talking about Satellites for days? I think he did many jobs and one that was probaly top secret!
What would be weird, if there was a murder in a far of place…and two peple in that place both worked for the same company.
Now that would be odd indeed.
@Katie
Personally I find it totally incredible that AH would want to help such a man.
I agree totally, and am not saying that SAH he WANTED to help Saddam, as you could read from my original post.
What I am saying is that he may have wanted either to help his country of birth, or to help his remaining family in Iraq, who may have been threatened with torture. Either (or both) are possible, and worthy of serious consideration, I contend.
Secondly,the reason AH went back to Iraq two years ago, was to ask the present government to help him regain the family property. Whatever else he did has not appeared in the press.
That may well be, but his frequent visits to Iraq to visit his family are also well documented in the press, and these would, I contend, have given him ample opportunity to contribute to Saddam’s nuclear program, given the incentives already outlined.
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/business/s/2020452_classic_scooter_outlet_turns_on_the_style
<emMr Barnett, a freelance design engineer from Byfleet,
Looks like he was originally in a similar line of business as SAH and then turned his hand to something else.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/annecy003gradientmap1.jpg/
Regarding james barnett (ams)
Fear that the internet search will lead to nothing as there are too many james barnetts. We dont even know whether we should search for jim or james.
We dont know whether he is british or american. Hence we would even find a james barnett at cnn, as the right hand of a us president candudate and as an us admiral who works for homeland security. It could be the scooter seller but there is no proof. Why would the scooter seller have an aero-photography firm? Does not fit into my logic. Perhaps he is a strawman then.
However, i feel that james barnett searching wont bring us any forward.
@Dopey
Brilliant link! Thank you thank you thank you. Could well be James Barnett… and confirms the (civilian) satellite work by SAH.
The friend, who would call himself only James, said: “He was the kind of guy you could ring for help if your car broke down at 8pm and he would say, ‘come round’ and we would spend until midnight fixing it; the kind of friend who was always there when you need him.”
James said he wanted to dispel any rumours that the tragedy was related to Mr Hilli’s work.
He said: “It was very civilian, you don’t need security clearance to work on satellites.
He worked for a company that made satellites.
“He would talk openly about his work, I knew where he worked but he didn’t discuss what he did exactly.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9525672/France-shooting-Victim-Saad-Al-Hilli-was-a-bright-engineer-and-a-perfect-father-with-a-loving-family.html
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/annecy003gradientmap2.jpg/
@Trowbridge
The thing I think you are missing is that the cahoots by the British in the plot would be a most closely guarded secret, something that few more than MI6 Director Sawers, and a few of his colleagues knew about.
So what does the Foreign Office, the Defense Staff et al. do when they hear about the massacre of Brits on holiday in France – they simply panic.
You can see what happens, an extreme case, when the same agency is involved with one plot while another one is surprisingly sprung on it, and it too goes wild.
Thank you for your understanding and patience – that makes perfect sense.
Look forward to hearing back what you get from your contacts – if anything!
🙂
@Dopey
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/family-took-sudden-holiday-after-fathers-recent-trip-to-baghdad-8114018.html
“He added that he had recently returned to Iraq to claim back the Baghdad premises where his family had a mechanical engineering business before it was sequestered by Saddam”.
@Dopey
A recent article said an unnamed source within the police said they were looking at a family dispute, but not one about the will – it was a more far reaching (or words to that effect) dispute than that.
Saad had been to Iraq allegedly, to try to reclaim the family company. I’d love to know what that company is. I doubt you’d bother unless it was financially worth it so it must be a decent sized company surely. I wonder if family members are still involved in it over there.
I remember reading in one of the newspaper articles that SAH had recently gone over to try and secure an £800,000 land deal, I believe… damn, wish I could remember where it was…
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/annecy003gradientmap3.jpg/
http://www.classicscootersuk.co.uk/contact/contact.php
The scooter business also appears to be run on a part-time basis (showroom viewings in the evenings and on weekends only)
http://www.emel.com/article?id=1&a_id=1152
Check Mohammed Al-Hilli’s Story? sound familiar?
Ferret,
The recent visit to Iraq was initially reported as to sell his house which had been turned into a barracks and ‘was worth pennies’
However later reports were about the family business on a visit 8 years ago.
The Daily telegraph reports here:-
The family owns a poultry business in Baghdad and Saad travelled to Iraq with a flak jacket around eight years ago in the aftermath of the war to secure the future of the firm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9529936/France-shooting-relatives-arrive-to-meet-children-of-murdered-parents.html
Other sources said it was an engineering business.
@Bluebird
James Barnett will have an address on AMS 1087’s most recent annual return at Companies House, that would be a good start.
Also, the company is “Swindon-based”, so he probably lives around there somewhere…
@ ricki @ ferret
Thanks.