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.
Peter, wouldn’t it have made sense for AH just to change his wheel, he had the time he was on holiday, but maybe he wasn’t carrying a spare, if not why not, was there something else in the spare wheel well ?
PS, Peter, we are looking at the lefthand rear wheel.
@Kenneth … IF one of the many states opposing Iran’s nuclear advancement suspected that Mollier and or SAH were involved in assisting this advancement then action would be swift and brutal……….How many Iranian scientists in the nuclear industry have been killed to date ??? SAH went on a pilgrimage to Qoms, so next door to one of Iran’s biggest enrichment bases?? A suspicion of wrong doing would be all that was needed
@ Katie
1. I don’t know about this exact model of BMW, but most BMWs these days do not come with a full-sized spare wheel, only a narrow “emergency wheel” that will get you to the nearest workshop, but no furthert. If it was a slow puncture, he would have been wise to leave the original tyre on and just inflate it periodically.
2. Yes, now that you have mentioned it, there is that discrepancy between left- and right-hand rear wheels.
Yeah, you may be right that he was killed for that,- because his situation resembles the fate of many other nuclear scientist have faced. And therefore we must always be quick to condemn Israel — this nation often referred to as “people of the book” i.e. learned people — killing of scientists for Gods sake!
But the only thing I objected to was exaggerating the importance of a annual occurring naval exercise in the Gulf
I know many of you are getting curious if it really can be true that the US Embassy in 1953 was used for planning the coup that ousted the democratically elected Moussadegh.
Here is James Risen’s account of it:
nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html
@Bluebird , your daily mail link states that the 2 Hicheur brothers were living in a french council flat before being raided. Why would they be living in a council flat ? These were specialists …
I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, but can somebody please help me take that huge, huge mental leap from (A) an iraqi mechanical engineer working in CAD-modelling, designing airplane kitchens and so forth, and (B) some worker in a metal factory – Mollier cannot have been a scientist of any description – to (C) the cutting edge of Iran’s nuclear programme?
I mean, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Iranians would welcome somebody with first-hand knowledge of new enrichment technologies
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=8270
but exactly what would these two victims have been able to contribute?
Owing to his iraqi descent, his freelance status and his outspoken views on Israel, it is scarcely believable that Mr al-Hilli would be privy to any sort of classified information on anything. What could he possibly betray, or be suspected of betraying?
Ken…
This Naval fleet / annual event…is actually the biggest there has been, so it’s not actaully “normal”.
This is a “carrier” force, if anything. And The Charles De Gaulle is parked up at the end of The Med currently (it is not part of this exercise…at the moment).
Now I am not shouting “It’s Iran, it’s Iran”.
What I am saying however, given some of the “radical behaviour” Iran can display VERSUS the crazy Neo Conservatives sat up on that “Capitol Hill”, I am “a tad” concerned.
Maybe, just maybe (and this is total pie in the sky) Mollier was acting as a “whistle blower” here.
Maybe the Govt.com’s in The West are going to “reveal” something about Iran (which will be possibly be completely untrue)….and then “sanction” the Israeli’s to “go forward”.
I have no idea.
I am thinking though “The Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnam” and also “The WMD claims and Iraq”. Bot were proven lies….but that didn’t matter at the time.
Hence people on here are trying to “check things out”.
@Peter go back and read some of the comments from Sunday night, think this was when the Hafnium bomb angle started to develop
I think Al-Hilli (taking into account his rants on Arabic message boards) motivation would be either to warn Iran against US/Israel troop movements or tactics or other islamic state of something he picked up on his Spy Sat’s.
All I have heard about his family in Iraq is that they are into politics? and am sure that the supression of this infomration may mean that its key!
The area he was found in has some clue im sure of it, there is a reason he was there for longer than they expected and stayed in this area!
@ Watcher
I have gone back and I still don’t get it. Take Mollier, for example. He cannot have been a scientist: no published papers, no mentions of him in the academic literature, no record from his alma mater, nothing. Now, some of you will no doubt say that his work must have been so super-secret that they made him vanish off the radar or something like that. Sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. My father is a retired scientist who did some highly classified defence work in his time. Through him, I know some of Germany’s top nuclear scientists who conduct the most highly classified research there is – but they are all scientists first and foremost, with typical scientists’ CVs, periods of academic tenure, published papers, mentions in lists of conference attendees etc. In other words, the Internet is awash with hits for all of them. To me, the fact that there is absolutely nothing to be found on Mollier is conclusive proof that he was not a scientist.
Havent seen this mentioned on here:
http://www.prlog.org/11976050-swiss-alps-shooting-of-british-couple-is-copycat-killing.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Swiss-Trap-ebook/dp/B006UTUST8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347799791&sr=8-1
Peter…
Hafnium is normally present at 1.5-3.0% by weight in zircon sand and baddeleyite, and is removed when zirconium is used for nuclear applications.
All hafnium compounds derive from this difficult extraction process based on the Kroll process.
Hafnium’s strong ability to absorb neutrons led to its use in controlling nuclear reactors.
Rods containing hafnium are raised or lowered to regulate the nuclear reaction.
The “Hafnium Controversy” is a debate over the possibility of ‘triggering’ rapid energy releases, via gamma ray emission, from a nuclear isomer of Hafnium, 178m2Hf.
178m2Hf has the highest excitation energy of any comparably long-lived isomer.
One gram of pure Hf-178-m2 would contain approximately 1330 megajoules of energy, the equivalent of exploding about 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of TNT.
You find “how to” trigger that…..and you’d be a Billionaire !
ALL Nuclear agencies are looking to do that.
Imagine the energy….but worse, imagine that…as a bomb.
Very small….and would pack a damn massive kick.
@Peter .. Then what did Monsieur Mollier do then ? Why has he been reported as a metallurgist ? …. there have been many discussions recently on the end to have all scientists publish there work and share results, the fact that this discussion exists nullifies any argument that all scientists must be publishing on a regular basis
@Katie
No reply?
Are you seriously suggesting this is on a par with the assassination of Bin Laden?!?
If so, that is truly hilarious…
🙂
In every case where the authorities have shot the perps dead for “a good reason” they have at least claimed responsibility for it, if not openly boasted about it. (Usually they lie about the circumstances, but still…)
Think Bin Laden, Jean Charles de Menezes…
Do you really think this is in the same camp???
@Peter
Try harder
*need not end – CORRECTION
@Peter
Re Mollier, just because you can’t find any published any papers by him doesn’t mean he didn’t have access to restricted material.
So… Zircon (Nuclear), Hafnium (Nuclear), Hf-178-m2 (Research), Trigger (Reseach).
Who does Nuclear (CERN) and does reaseach (CERN and LAPP) and where are they based ????
Throw in SILEX (Nuclear/Lasers/Trigger?) and SSTL (Satellites/XRay imagining/Lasers)
and you have !
Well not alot, unless some can link all that together. But all that seems to be in one carpark…at the same time. And all died.
Surely any Hafnium smuggling would be more likely to be used to control nuclear reactions in a reaction chamber i.e fuel rods and less likely to be used for a bomb………
You don’t have to be a scientist to smuggle the stuff
@ Peter
A bit off-topic, but I think that they’ve caught the Grigny murderer by now
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoni_Palmier
I don’t see any info regarding him being found guilty of this. Plus what I was trying to say was you don’t have to be a so called ‘pro’ to shoot someone in the head twice.
@Peter
Try harder
Okay. Initial reports suggested that Mollier worked at Ugitech, just down the road from CEZUS
http://www.ugitech.com/contact/
That was later amended.
How about this hypothesis: This error was made because he used to work at Ugitech, making stainless steel rods, rebars etc., before moving on to CEZUS. That would make him what I see him as, a blue-collar worker in the metal industry.
@Stan
Good point. Either way could get him killed.
@Peter
See my post a few mins ago.
Sorry I meant Control Rods
Surely any Hafnium smuggling would be more likely to be used to control nuclear reactions in a reaction chamber i.e control rods and less likely to be used for a bomb………
You don’t have to be a scientist to smuggle the stuff
@Stan
I understood.
🙂
Like I say, either way could get him killed.
Re Mollier, just because you can’t find any published any papers by him doesn’t mean he didn’t have access to restricted material
That depends what you mean by “restricted material”. He most likely possessed commercially confidential know-how on manufacturing processes for zirconium rods. But he was not, I maintain, a researcher.
But wait a minute, Mollier didn’t need to be a scientist, he worked at Cezus which means he could have had ‘access’ to vital info there would be plenty of staff who did other work.
A few more queries for theories:
Why did the ambassador Peter Ricketts rush onto TV,not to mention despatching his deputy Kara Owen to the scene? Surely that flagged up something strange?
Why no aerial film/TV footage? We only have the two stills. At the Dr Kelly “suicide” find, there was quite a lot of footage, although it might all have been from one jaunt. A question for the Daily Mail who are looking in here for ideas. The late afternoon timeslot for l’affair Combe d’Ire.
Why move the tubed daughter by ?plane? from Grenoble?
Wright blog doesn’t mention Kelly – strangely. Although that one was “solved” immediately. Why all those early interviews with neighbours? They all said “how normal” the Al Hillis were – standard stuff.
Peter & Stan, we cross posted the same thought. 🙂
@Peter
the Daily Mail piece you quote mentions the dutch “customer service co-ordinator” also (interviewed by the Mirror) saying that the BMW arrived with only one mountain bike on the roof-rack.
We don’t know if it were broken before it arrived.
If Al-Hilli knew Mollier and the latter were a production worker, how would they have met or been put into contact intially? Divorced, married to a local pharacist.