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.
Murdermostyfowl,
Highest res version of photo I can find http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/09/08/article-2200388-14DEF9C4000005DC-848_638x624.jpg
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Look very closely.
The front driver’s RHD half of the windscreen looks to be rather clearly shot out, or caved in, be my guest, with shattered glass all over the instrument pod. I don’t see any blood but the res is not that good.
Glass on the inside, lots of it on the dash, not on the bonnet.
Plus, what appear to be two round white marks on the screen, as if a body hit it, or a sledgehammer was taken to it.
Anyone agree about the front windscreen? If so, how did this happen?
RAFman didn’t cave in the front window (still intact), when the driver’s side already has two holes in it per the official story of how SAH was shot.
Ditto the front pax side, 2 holes as in at least 2 bullet holes. RAFman didn’t go in that way.
That is getting crazy.
A point made by TomRudko above rings true to me. What man would take his family, his children, to a clandestine meeting that involved anything as dangerous as many suggest here? This strongly suggests to me that Al-Hilli had no understanding he was doing anything untoward.
(1) Speculation about a treff in the woods makes some sense given the al-Hillis seem to have waited an hour in an otherwise uninteresting spot, but what man takes his children to a potentially dangerous meeting?
(2) Probably al Hilli was the target, not the cyclist: he and his passengers were executed with great professionalism at close range (almost complete surprise), whereas the cyclist was clearly shot at greater range, implying he was not the primary target, merely a witness.
(3) It’s much harder to be accurate with handguns than people think, even at close range. To perform a series of triple taps into three people in a vehicle with not a single misplaced shot bespeaks a lot of training and experience.
(4) I would have guessed two killers given that only one person escaped from the car, but I don’t know what has been confirmed. The 7.65mm ammo is suggestive – used in small concealable handguns, but 25 rounds fired means at least three, more likely four mag changes for a single weapon. That is, unless a small SMG were used, like a Skorpion. 7.65mm is much easier to moderate (silencer) than 9mm, because most 9mm is supersonic. 9mm would be preferred for stopping power, but you’d choose 7.65mm for a quiet “surprise” close range hit.
(5) “Almost complete surprise”: position of vehicle suggests driver saw it coming and tried to reverse away from man/men producing guns. He was disabled before he get into Drive. This is consistent with vehicle bumping backwards into bank, and depth of rear tyres implies car (if automatic) was spinning its wheels in Reverse, possibly right up to ex-RAF witness killing engine. (May explain why he felt turning engine off such a priority.)
(6) Even the Mossad would likely balk at killing young children, as should (we hope) any Western wet affairs types: this level of brutality is more like that of Colombian or Albanian blackhats, and since their involvement seems unlikely, certain Arab agencies spring to mind.
(7) Very hard to fit family row/inheritance feud into this scenario. The stench of politics and intel/paramilitary involvement is unmistakable.
(8) IMHO, we will learn more about al Hilli’s history and activities that will begin to shed light on this.
“Does this look like a track you’d casually drive a BMW up on a family holiday?”
I think on balance that may be a photo of a different track, given that there’s tarmac on both of the other two photos I linked to. Looks like the road / track of tarmacked at least as far as where the car was found. Still have to be pretty fit to cycle up it in 15-20 minutes though.
This guy interviewed on BBC 5 live, is some sort of ex-detective, turned crime writer/investigator. Was over in Chevaline for 24 hours. He has apparently no interest in the occupations of al Hilli or the French cyclist. But he says that it “couldn’t be” a professional ‘hit’ because the killers went back down the hill. He says you can take the turn in the road and carry on by car for 20 miles (but he doesn’t say where it ends up).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtLgnAaM9Ws&feature=youtu.be
Straw44berry
I make that sign 3k away as the crow flies from the coords posted by Darko. These cords seem to match those given in other sources showing overhead google maps.
Gogle Sat Nav is happy to plot a car route from the sign to the spot – 3.6km driving. Google Sat Nav is also happy to plot an onward route from there (but not up the smaller track that starts up the mountain from the small “car-park”).
Aren’t the marks on the screen just from someone shooting from the drivers side inwards, ditto the smaller hole in the passenger side front door glass?
Suggesting that who ever had been in the front seat had left before things kicked off, either older girl – or pretend RAF man?
“couldn’t be” a professional ‘hit’
Turned out to be a *very* professional hit as almost everyone died and the killers have vanished into thin air, and the authorities seem unwilling to investigate it properly.
Milton
agree with some of that but the fact is neither of the children were killed (presumably after seeing the 7 year old they would have guessed the 4 year old was about)so perhaps the assassins were only expecting Al-Hilli and balked at slaughtering the children but “had to” knock the 7 year old out because she was screaming or something after shooting her to stop her running off. So maybe still a “western” (what are you implying here about arabs?) intelligence agency with some qualms about killing children.
May I suggest a healthy degree of scepticism to rumours that non-existent Iranian nuclear ambitions are part of this? We wouldn’t want to give the zionist entity a pretext for even more terrorism now would we?
The photos on oddonion.com are credited NI Syndication.
Now, we all know who NI are, don’t we? Or that yet another red herring??
@phil
Anders7777 said this yesterday:
Why would Saad al Hilli take his wife, kids and mother-in-law along to a clandestine rendezvous to exchange intelligence or materials? That makes no sense.
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Yes it does because who would think he was up to something, he took the family for a day out in the Alps. He sees Sylvain, he sez I’m getting out to stretch my legs, they have a meet on a mountain bike trail away from the car. I doubt for one minute he thought he would be ambushed or he wouldn’t have gone there. Apparently the family went there every year, a caravan, a property in France et cetera. If it was a proper rendezvous I would wager he planned on a quick walk whilst the women looked after the children.
Of course this is all supposition. But nobody can deny the facts ref Sylvain’s employers and SAH’s.
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Suhayl said this yesterday:
Re. the question of why he took his family to the remote possible rendezvous, one ought to point out that families – including children – are used often for cover in espionage activity. Read Corinne Souza’s excellent work on the subject – her father was an Iraqi SIS agent for many years, so she writes from experience.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baghdads-Spy-Personal-Espionage-Intrigue/dp/1840187034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347178840&sr=1-1
Someone in France (unknown to me) is tweeting me (and others) with the word zirconium. Also talking about ‘To see if they have recovered from zirconium from Ugine in France Alps’. Ugine is the site of CEZUS.
http://www.areva.com/EN/operations-977/cezus-ugine-melting-and-forging.html
May not be relevant. Do you have to recover from contact with zirconium?
@Milton:
“Even the Mossad would likely balk at killing young children, as should (we hope) any Western wet affairs types….certain Arab agencies spring to mind.”
Two questions immediately spring to mind from your sentence:
Why would a state which willfully kills children with war and sanctions hesitate to do the same with special forces?
Why do you think an Arab agency would be more ready to kill children than others?
“Turned out to be a *very* professional hit as almost everyone died and the killers have vanished into thin air, and the authorities seem unwilling to investigate it properly.”
Yes, my thinking exactly.
@Anders7777 et al
There is a very full timeline in French at
http://www.lemessager.fr/Actualite/Chablais/2012/09/05/article_messager_1623629.shtml
Oddity: the absence in the timeline of unnamed the wife of Sylvain Mollier raising the alarm there. In fact this fact comes only from the Prosecutor who spread the rumour that the cyclist was the wrong person in the wrong place (Huff Post link 6 sept)
Sylvain Mollier semble avoir été au mauvais endroit, au mauvais moment. Il est la seule victime non britannique de la tuerie de Chevaline.
Ce père de famille, originaire d’Ugine, près d’Albertville en Savoie, était parti faire un tour de vélo, mercredi, du côté du lac d’Annecy tout proche. Il ne s’est pas rendu dans cette zone peu fréquentée, boisée et sans issue par hasard.
Il avait pris la direction de Chevaline avec la ferme intention d’en découdre avec « une bonne petite montée ».
En ne le voyant pas revenir, sa compagne a donné l’alerte.
Sylvain Mollier venait d’avoir un fils, en juin dernier. Employé chez Cezus il était en congé parental. Ce quadragénaire était père de trois enfants.
No mention of the wife there. This is what the Huff Post writes:
His wife, worried when he did not return from his cycle ride, alerted the authorities, without making a link to the killings.
She went to a local police station with a photograph of her husband. Officers quickly made the link and her husband was identified as the fourth victim.
He found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud said.. Is this from the prosecutor?
No interviews forthcoming from the wife – she is not a witness to anything one imagines. No doubt gagged.
Notice also the deputy Mayor of Ugine, Michel Chevallier, who knew Sylvain Mollier and relayed the news to his wife, allegedly, on Wed 6 September lays out the official narrative:
“Dans ma tête, je vois Sylvain arriver en vélo et une personne lui tirer dessus parce qu’il a été témoin d’un massacre”, raconte l’adjoint, ajoutant : “il serait passé peut-être cinq minutes avant, il serait tranquille, cinq minutes après, il aurait été le premier témoin de ce massacre, mais aujourd’hui il serait avec nous pour parler de ce massacre”.
from reports it appears that al hilli (or someone) tried to reverse the car out of the lay-by (tyres sank deep into the mud) would make sense if the road ahead was blocked(4×4)and there was no escape from behind.
.
so many “qualified” people in such a small area .. is this place popular with this type of tourist .. or is it just another “conspiricists” coincidence?
@Dave
Aren’t the marks on the screen just from someone shooting from the drivers side inwards,
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They don’t look like bullet holes to me though, they kinda look like someone tried to break the widow with something
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ditto the smaller hole in the passenger side front door glass?
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Well there are 2 holes so I would think 2 or more bullets on pax side…
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Suggesting that who ever had been in the front seat had left before things kicked off, either older girl – or pretend RAF man?
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Like the pretend RAFman bit, as in, they were waiting for Sylvain to arrive, then RAFman does the hit, with help from others.
If Zainab was in the front pax seat (I still don’t know for sure about the child seat arrangements, or who was in the back, wife or Zainab?), she had stepped out of the car for some reason. The official story says she was not in the car when the shooting started, so, a stray bullet?
I still think the front driver’s half of the windscreen looks caved in or shot in?
Any more opinions?
@Dave
“couldn’t be” a professional ‘hit’
Turned out to be a *very* professional hit as almost everyone died and the killers have vanished into thin air, and the authorities seem unwilling to investigate it properly.
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Yes you can always count on the BBC to give airtime to the sayanim types…
So…4X4’s…surely SatNaV fitted a standard on exactly these types of vehicle.
Should be easy enough,then,for the authorities to comb the SatNav datbanks with these co-ordinates for a specific time-window..
Sorry if it’s been posted already .. I can’t keep up and “work” at the same time ..
FWIW –
http://islamic-intelligence.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lac-dannecy-affaire-al-hilli-la.html
Bing Translate: –
“Lake Annecy: Case Al Hilli, the gendarmerie and the Attorney of the Republic Maillaud covered the commando of killers from the Lyon suburbs, this is a military operation which has taken a ‘Arab’ working and knowing a tiny part of the design of the aero-space shield of NATO-Israel.
Contrary to what reported in the anglo-French corrupt media, Saad Al Hilli was in fact under British protection because he was working on the design of new systems GPS of firing missiles and the harmonization of guidance systems and inter-operabilites European aero-space shields of NATO. The Iranians, the South Koreans, Chinese, Russians possess already plans for the militarization of airspace, and Western aero-space architecture are in fact Israelis who have provided the technology plans and some of the European plans East, against Chinese billions. Israel as it does not provide any details of his ‘iron dome’.
“
>> The Israeli programme of assassination of scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme is a definite fact. <<
One key feature of this program is that scientists are killed on the basis of what they *know* rather than what they *do*. Their current work is not as important as the level of knowledge that they have attained. If the Israelis believe a scientist has the knowledge to help the nuclear weapons programme — even if they are not engaged in any manner with such a programme — the scientist is killed.
This comes straight from the mouth of an IDF general. He was quite open and matter-of-fact about it.
from reports it appears that al hilli (or someone) tried to reverse the car out of the lay-by (tyres sank deep into the mud) would make sense if the road ahead was blocked(4×4)and there was no escape from behind.
He may have been going for drive, but only got as far as reverse before being shot – remember park reverse neutral drive, it’s gone into the bank hard enough to dig in a bit, but not hard enough to crash?
of course not to forget al hilli also worked for the uk intel agencies against saddam in blairs war ..
This is not a wind up.
Perhaps the NYPD officers currently in London can help out. They seem to be ubiquitous. In Israel, France, Germany, and other places.
NYPD Opens Up New Bureau–in Israel
Mayor Bloomberg’s “personal army” heads to the Middle East. What could go wrong?
http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/nypd-opens-new-bureau-israel
“Even the Mossad would likely balk at killing young children”
What Phil said, 10 Sep, 2012 – 4:30 pm
@Jives – no, probably not. Location searches are usually stored in Satnav memory, but otherwise Satnavs don’t usually keep a record of ongoing position. This requires more storage and software than these very simple computers have, and is done deliberately to reduce the cost.
Also – I’m sure you already know – Satnavs only receive a signal, so there is no record of their position on the satellite side.
@Anders777
Yes, my point was possibly naive. I suppose I simply cannot empathise with people who play these games. Such cruelty is hard to imagine.
I’m not the only one to think it odd that the initial police didn’t check the bodies for sign of life;
“Forensic experts said the first job for police who arrived at the crime scene should have been to check for survivors.
But it could be that the first officers called to the rural beauty spot in the French countryside simply ‘panicked’ when confronted with the horror.
In the UK, a doctor would be called to certify death – doing so, in this instance, could have alerted officers that the child was alive amidst the carnage in the car.
Jim Fraser, professor of forensic science at the University of Strathclyde, said the first responsibility for officers confronted with such a crime scene is to check the victims for signs of life.
It has been known for victims even with gunshot wounds to the head to live for hours and survive if they get emergency treatment.
He said: ‘The overriding responsibility to the first responder at a crime scene, in the UK, would be to ensure that all individuals present are accounted for, their health and welfare, with an initial but thorough look at the crime scene.’
Prof Fraser said of such multiple death crimes: ‘It’s a pretty horrible scene – not for the faint-hearted.’
Forensic experts say it is a fiction to think murder scenes are preserved in pristine condition until they are examined by crime scene investigators.
Only after police have carried out their duty to preserve life and certify death do they ‘freeze the scene’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198777/French-Alps-shooting-Police-question-Saad-Al-Hillis-brother-Zaid-inheritance-row.html#ixzz2658gG4Z5”
Hope it’s just bizarre procedure rather than something more sinister.
@Milton
(1) Speculation about a treff in the woods makes some sense given the al-Hillis seem to have waited an hour in an otherwise uninteresting spot, but what man takes his children to a potentially dangerous meeting?
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See my post just now on this, it is quite common. It also suggests he was NOT worried about this meet, if it was a meet. He felt safe, did RAFman make him feels safe?
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(2) Probably al Hilli was the target, not the cyclist: he and his passengers were executed with great professionalism at close range (almost complete surprise), whereas the cyclist was clearly shot at greater range, implying he was not the primary target, merely a witness.
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I don’t buy that, Sylvain could have been sprayed from a distance. The hit team may have been waiting for him to arrive, then take out all but the kids. Bad timing, Sylvain arrived whilst Zainab having a toilet break? Zainab takes a stray bullet? Pistol whipped, but no more. Someone had a conscience.
(3) It’s much harder to be accurate with handguns than people think, even at close range. To perform a series of triple taps into three people in a vehicle with not a single misplaced shot bespeaks a lot of training and experience.
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Very much so
(4) I would have guessed two killers given that only one person escaped from the car, but I don’t know what has been confirmed. The 7.65mm ammo is suggestive – used in small concealable handguns, but 25 rounds fired means at least three, more likely four mag changes for a single weapon. That is, unless a small SMG were used, like a Skorpion. 7.65mm is much easier to moderate (silencer) than 9mm, because most 9mm is supersonic. 9mm would be preferred for stopping power, but you’d choose 7.65mm for a quiet “surprise” close range hit.
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Mossad and Skymarhalls use this round and Beretta 70 types for this reason.
Also, 43 bullets, not 25.
(5) “Almost complete surprise”: position of vehicle suggests driver saw it coming and tried to reverse away from man/men producing guns. He was disabled before he get into Drive.
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Not too sure about this, wheels do seem to have dug into the bank, if driver panicked in reverse, then dies, engine may have been left screaming in reverse. RAFman was determined to switch the engine off, for some reason, rather than tend Zainab.
This is consistent with vehicle bumping backwards into bank,
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But no dents at front of beemer, so it wasn’t bumped back, blocked I would say yes…
and depth of rear tyres implies car (if automatic) was spinning its wheels in Reverse, possibly right up to ex-RAF witness killing engine. (May explain why he felt turning engine off such a priority.)
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Someone gave details of the beemer rear diff, car may have been kinda bouncing as the electronics coped with spinning wheels
(6) Even the Mossad would likely balk at killing young children, as should (we hope) any Western wet affairs types: this level of brutality is more like that of Colombian or Albanian blackhats, and since their involvement seems unlikely, certain Arab agencies spring to mind.
(7) Very hard to fit family row/inheritance feud into this scenario. The stench of politics and intel/paramilitary involvement is unmistakable.
(8) IMHO, we will learn more about al Hilli’s history and activities that will begin to shed light on this.
Great stuff!