The 2012 Alpine Murders Conspiracy – Unexplained and Unsolved

originally posted by: flatbush71
a reply to: mirageman

Excellent report.
But there is one area you didn't cover.
And that's his activities before, during and after the last Gulf War.

Buck

Thanks for the tip off. This really is a case with a huge amount of loose ends and tidbits of information spread wide across the web. It is still very difficult to put it all together. The mainstream news media (and even the not so mainstream) have tended to report one part of the story. I have yet to find a comprehensive timeline and overview of the case.

However I have so far found this which may or may not be relevant.

...Iraqi-born engineer Saad, 50, worked at the internationally-renowned Rutherford Appleton research centre in the 1980s.

His links to the lab will fuel conspiracy theories....

Our revelation follows claims that Saad's family had owned an engineering plant in Iraq, that he was spied on by Special Branch during the Gulf War and that his aerial satellite photo firm worked for the Ministry of Defence.

According to an ex-colleague at the Rutherford lab in Didcot, Oxon, Saad worked on a giant particle accelerator which can make radioactive material.........

The tightly-guarded lab employs 1,200 staff and provides support for more than 10,000 scientists and engineers.

Iraqi sources said he had recently returned from a trip back there to try to reclaim the family’s engineering plant, which had been taken over by Saddam’s regime.

Earlier a neighbour said that Saad had been watched by Special Branch at his £1million home in Claygate, Surrey.

Philip Murphy said officers spied on Saad from his driveway, and followed him in cars.

It was claimed the surveillance happened as the invasion of Iraq by US and British forces began in March 2003....

Source : Daily Mirror

Neighbours at the Europa caravan park in nearby Saint-Jorioz, where the family stayed, also said Mr Al-Hilli left the site alone up to five times each day.

One, Annemarie Souderman, said: “He went out for 20 or 30 minutes each time ... it was very odd to go out so often alone.” Souderman also said she spotted a smartly dressed man, possibly from Eastern Europe, hanging about....


Source : Evening Standard

Then we have this regarding Saad's brother Zaid.

French police are checking a number of calls allegedly made from the phone of Zaid al-Hilli, the brother of Saad al-Hilli, who was gunned down alongside his wife Iqbal, 47, and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, 74. Their children Zainab and Zeena survived the shooting at a remote beauty spot near Lake Annecy last September. Five phone numbers in Romania were called repeatedly, according to claims in Le Parisien newspaper. Eric Maillaud, the French prosecutor leading the inquiry, said: “There were calls made from the phone of Saad al-Hilli’s brother to Romania. “We know calls were made to Romania but we do not know who was at the other end of the line or why the calls were made.”...

Source : Evening Standard

So we have Saad leaving the holiday camp each day alone. A man of Eastern European origin possibly on the scene and brother Zaid making calls to Romania.

Next we have this

...A British engineer murdered in the French Alps may have had access to part of a multi-million pound fortune once belonging to Saddam Hussein, it has been claimed....

....intelligence officials based in Berlin have uncovered evidence that Mr Al-Hilli may have had access to cash which belonged to the former Iraqi dictator.

.....German agents have now told their French anti-terrorist counterparts that cash deposited in an Al-Hilli account in Geneva originally came from Saddam.

Kadhim , a former factory owner, left Baghdad in the late 1970s with his wife, Fasiha, and two boys [Saad and Zaid], after allegedly falling foul of Saddam's Ba'ath Party.

The family settled in Pimlico, central London, with any accounts containing money given to Kadhim by Saddam allegedly frozen after Kadhim was struck off a "list of beneficiaries", according to the new German intelligence.

But the clear implication is that Kadhim may not have fallen out with Saddam at all, and was in fact being used to get money out of Iraq on behalf of the dictator, who was always making plans in case he was overthrown....

....Saddam is known to have concentrated particularly large amounts in Switzerland and France, where he had at least two homes and moored a £17million yacht.

Source :Daily Telegraph

All of this seems to have been played down as the initial shock of the murders and public interest waned. Perhaps the authorities really have nothing to go on and these are all exaggerated stories with little real evidence to go on.

If not then has there been a cover-up and an international conspiracy?

They were married in Louisiana (first husband).
There's a lot of suspicion on this side of the pond as well.
Dig out all the facts you can and let people know.

Buck

a reply to: flatbush71

Can you elaborate at all?

I stated digging into this when it happened, due to connections in Natchez and as former Officer Thompson was a standup guy. Since there was no direct evidence of a crime being committed within U.S. jurisdiction I had to let it go. I was within the group calling for exhumation and in-depth toxic screen being done. That was overruled.

The first thing you learn as a cop, is you will never catch'em all.
That's rule one from the School of Hard Knocks.

Think about this. More than 211,000 homicides committed since 1980 remain unsolved – a body count greater than the population of Des Moines, Iowa.

www.decodedc.com...




Buck

originally posted by: flatbush71
I stated digging into this when it happened, due to connections in Natchez and as former Officer Thompson was a standup guy. Since there was no direct evidence of a crime being committed within U.S. jurisdiction I had to let it go. I was within the group calling for exhumation and in-depth toxic screen being done. That was overruled.

The first thing you learn as a cop, is you will never catch'em all.
That's rule one from the School of Hard Knocks.

Buck

Interesting.

From everything I've seen the American connection has been dismissed as just a crazy coincidence.

But the haphazard way everything has been reported by police and media leaves me wondering whether there was pressure on the French & British police to back off and look in the wrong directions until there is no one left interested in the case.

Thanks again.

A lot of the guys around here like use the phrase " Down the Rabbit hole " .
It definitely applies to this case.

Buck

a reply to: Chadwickus

this case was discussed at length on here at the time , i thought it may have been a kidnap and ransom deal that had gone wrong but it turned out i was wrong , you may like to check this out in the archive's .

originally posted by: flatbush71
A lot of the guys around here like use the phrase " Down the Rabbit hole " .
It definitely applies to this case.

Buck

Thanks for providing a few hints. I won't be able to follow anything up for a couple of days. Maybe I'll find nothing else. But this has certainly been a very odd case.

a reply to: mirageman

More here:

September 5 was a spectacular day, sunlight drizzling through foliage that twitched with the breeze. Saad, who was 50, stood with his elder daughter, 7-year-old Zainab, maybe talking to a local cyclist who’d pedaled up the mountain or maybe just absorbed in the scenery. It is impossible to say for sure.


Almost certainly, though, he didn’t see the shooter in the trees before he heard the first shots.


Saad screamed at Zainab to get in the car. He quickstepped to the driver’s door, twisted into the seat. But Zainab hadn’t moved, just stood there, frozen. Saad probably didn’t realize that. What man leaves his daughter to get shot? He slapped the gearshift into reverse, cranked the wheel hard to the left, stomped on the gas. The BMW skittered backward in an arc, a jittery half circle. The shooter was out of the woods by then, standing in the center of the arc like a pivot point. The car completed the turn, the rear against the tree line, got stuck, wheels trenching divots into the loose soil at the edge of the forest.


Saad had clipped the French cyclist with the bumper, dragged him through the turn, left him bleeding in the dirt.


Most likely Saad already was dead. He was shot four times, twice in the head. His wife, a 47-year-old dentist named Iqbal, was dead in the backseat, also shot four times, also twice in the head. Her mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, was dead, too, shot three times, twice in the head. The cyclist was shot five times, including twice in the head. Zainab was still alive, though barely: She was shot once in the shoulder, then clubbed in the skull with the butt of the gun.


The shooter had fired 21 times, mostly at a moving vehicle. Seventeen bullets hit people. None of them struck the frame or the doors or the fenders or any other part of the BMW. Eight of them were head shots.


Apparently he was a professional.

www.gq.com...

a reply to: soberbacchus

Good find!

Good post Mirageman,I not been active on here for a long time,nice to see something so well constructed.
I have a question,Was the motorcyclists story corroborated by the 2 Park Rangers, I cannot find any info on them at all.

a reply to: mirageman

First let me tell you the only inconsistency in your OP is that you say the event took place on Sept 5th but then go on to say a few days earlier on September 10th the brother's home was raided for hazardous material.

Now....

Assuming the family was killed for inconveniently rolling up on the cyclist's murder as it was happening, we can then account for the fact that being in an enclosed space, possibly with music or conversation, would create the possibility that they wouldn't hear the gunshots as they approached.

Now we see that a cyclist approaching a man shooting the people occupying the car is implausible, because the cyclist surely would have heard the gun shots for a few miles. No mention of whether he was wearing headphones.

Also, the allusive tone of the OP hints at a situation where someone well to do and well connected would have the network of peoples necessary and able to manipulate the facts of the case, even possibly subvert the press. This seems like the typical work of someone connected to establishment politics.

The shooter being of a former intelligence agency seems unlikely due to the sloppiness, assuming that the family was an unintended consequence that would have surely been thoroughly considered and avoided and the cyclist was the target and the shooter was from an intel agency. But if the media had been manipulated... then maybe intel was involved.

If the killer first opened fire on the vehicle, a cyclist would have heard them as he was approaching. The fact that the vehicle remained in drive upon discovery suggests that it was done quickly and superfluously in reaction, meaning not originally intended.

The brother has a unique amount of circumstantial motive with the inheritance, but didn't seem to be well connected enough to find such an obscure and specific assassin, and or to have the social network required to manipulate the facts and evidence of a criminal case of a crime that occurred in another country. It makes more sense that with all of the given anomalies mentioned the case was somehow subverted. If it was done so, it was done so by someone in a position of high ranking wealth and power, in France.

Did you say that the car is now gone from when it was impounded by the police? No one can track it?

I guess my view is antithetical to Kandinsky, who based his position on the statistical probability of the perpetrator as opposed to the more mundane-yet-somehow-still-illusive-because-it's-so-simple-yet-so-obscure... political/bankster cabal.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

First let me tell you the only inconsistency in your OP is that you say the event took place on Sept 5th but then go on to say a few days earlier on September 10th the brother's home was raided for hazardous material.

What I actually wrote was.....

....Maillaud told reporters in Surrey on Sept. 13th 2012, “the reasons and the causes have their origins in this country.”

A few days earlier on Sept. 10th 2012, a British Army bomb disposal unit was sent to the al-Hilli’s home....

So sorry if that confused you and anyone else. But when I said "... a few days earlier on Sept. 10th " I meant a few days earlier than Sept 13th which was in the preceding line. Perhaps a poor choice of phrasing on my part but best to get that cleared up I guess.

Now we see that a cyclist approaching a man shooting the people occupying the car is implausible, because the cyclist surely would have heard the gun shots for a few miles. No mention of whether he was wearing headphones.

From other reports the French police actually did fire test shots in the vicinity where the bodies were found and due to the noise of the nearby river it was discovered that the shots could not be heard.

The shooter being of a former intelligence agency seems unlikely due to the sloppiness, assuming that the family was an unintended consequence that would have surely been thoroughly considered and avoided and the cyclist was the target and the shooter was from an intel agency. But if the media had been manipulated... then maybe intel was involved.

Yes indeed. The shooting seem sloppy. But then a lot of the reporting of the facts is sloppy too by the media. So who knows?

The brother has a unique amount of circumstantial motive with the inheritance, but didn't seem to be well connected enough....

That seems to be the case. But the father of the al-Hilli's had an interesting history. So we don't know for sure.

Did you say that the car is now gone from when it was impounded by the police? No one can track it?

No I don't believe I mentioned that.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: soberbacchus

Good find!

From that description.

The 7 seven year old daughter had told her father she wanted to see the woods. that was the cause of the day-trip from the camp site.

Saad apparently had earlier missed a turn off to their woods destination and ended up pulling into that turn-around/rest spot where the Biker was.

It was wooded, so Saad and his 7 year old daughter got out, so she could look at the woods and he could maybe ask the biker for directions or advice on where to go.

The shooter was in the woods already.
Waiting. It was a planned ambush.

He could not have been waiting for Saad and family since the day-trip was impulsive and Saad wasn't even in the right place, he had missed a turn to boot. Saad (and family) wasn't anywhere where he had planned to be.

So the shooter might have been waiting in the woods for Saad to move on, so he could kill the biker who was at the rest area, but the 7 year old girl wanted to see the woods...she spots the shooter..

He opens fire from the woods. Hits the 7 year old girl in the shoulder. It was a distance shot with a pistol and the only non-lethal shot the shooter took. Saad doesn't realize she is hit and yells for her to get in the car and he jumps in.

The girl was knocked to the ground by the shot and Saad doesn't see her and thinks she jumped in back.

He throws the car into reverse in utter panic while the shooter emerges from the woods firing.

Saad clips the biker when backs up and his tires spin out sliding in an arc.

The shooter stands within that arc and manages to shoot every adult in the moving car without even hitting the outside of the car. Body and head shots..like a professional killer.

He then goes to the biker who is in the ditch after being clipped by the car and executes him as well.

He realizes then that the 7 year old is still alive, but is then out of ammo and brutally beats her with the gun, assumes she is dead or will be shortly.

He was waiting in the woods in ambush. It had to be for the biker. He would have waited for the family to leave if the 7 year olds curiosity about the woods hadn't given up his position.

He was professionally trained and a superb shot. He brought more than enough ammo for the biker, but not for the biker plus Saad and family. A professional planning to kill the family would have had more than enough ammo.

The biker (unlike Saad) was exactly where he would be expected to be. A planned biking route and the first rest spot to take water and/or turn around if the road became too rough.

The family was an unplanned murder IMO. the Biker was the target.
The shooter was indisputably well trained to kill and a very good shot.

*On 21 October 2013, BBC Panorama reported that a grey BMW X5 right hand drive 4x4 car was at the crime scene at the time of the murders, the driver of which may be a possible accomplice to the crime
en.wikipedia.org...

Its possible that this car was able to continue on the road, rather than turn back? thus was not spotted by the biker that followed and discovered the scene?

My best guess is Patrice Menegaldo as the shooter.

a reply to: soberbacchus

There's nothing in the OP about the biker having wounds from a car accident, that's what the man in the video is telling us he thought had happened until he got closer and realized the biker had 7 gunshot wounds.

All 21 shots of this with a German WW2 era pistol, fired from the woods? Not likely.

Even with an excellent marksman, these shots would have to be taken at point blank. It would be damn near impossible to get that kind of precision on a moving target from a distance, with that handgun. The shooter was clearly standing in the middle of the road and probably flagged Saad down as he approached, who in turn came to a complete stop with the foot break only to be released upon receiving the fatal head shots.

It's like he shot everyone in the head and chest once and then went back and got everyone in the head again to finish the job. The fact that the cyclist has the most slugs in him should prove he was the target.

Besides, if it were about the inheritance, the killer would not have left the children alive. The hit wouldn't have even taken place there. I'll bet those crime scene photos are wild, CSI: Miami wild, even.

As for Saad leaving the park up to 5 times a day in the BMW? He was leaving to get cellular service, the biker who discovered the crime scene mentioned not being able to get a signal on his phone.

a reply to: mirageman

From other reports the French police actually did fire test shots in the vicinity where the bodies were found and due to the noise of the nearby river it was discovered that the shots could not be heard.

That must be one noisy river to be loud enough to drown out the sound of gunshots, pun not intended.

Do we have any pictures of the crime scene? Of the terrain? Of the river?

Has anyone other than French police been back to the crime scene to test this scenario? Did they test it with the same make and model/caliber ww2 era pistol?

The French police seem to have corrupted some of the facts, either intentionally or as a result of incompetence. I would want further examination done with the same kind of handgun. The position of shell casings should give away the location of the shooter unless he went back in to collect those. Since the biker didn't mention seeing spent shell casings I'm going to assume there weren't any or very few nearby.

If we knew the size of the bullet holes in the windows of the BMW we could determine the distance the weapon was discharged from.

The French police seem to have conveniently spent most of their resources in Britain, focusing on the brother-in-law.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: soberbacchus

There's nothing in the OP about the biker having wounds from a car accident, that's what the man in the video is telling us he thought had happened until he got closer and realized the biker had 7 gunshot wounds.

I provided it in an earlier post. Saad hit the biker when he tried to flee the shooter in his car.

All 21 shots of this with a German WW2 era pistol, fired from the woods? Not likely.

I think it is 24 shots, and first shots fired from woods..rest fired at close range as the vehicle arced and then stuck in ditch as it tried to escape.

It's like he shot everyone in the head and chest once and then went back and got everyone in the head again to finish the job. The fact that the cyclist has the most slugs in him should prove he was the target.

Right...That is what I said.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

That must be one noisy river to be loud enough to drown out the sound of gunshots, pun not intended.

Apparently it was according to police reports

The bodies were discovered by Brett Martin, a British ex-RAF pilot, who is a resident in France, while he was out riding his bicycle. He heard nothing of the shots.[6] This might be because he was crossing the last river bridge just a few hundred metres from the murder location; the noise of the water easily masking the sound of gunfire....

Source : Wikipedia

Do we have any pictures of the crime scene? Of the terrain? Of the river?

There is a map on the Wiki page linked above.

This might be a bit better to help form a picture.

Daily Mail : Timeline of a Massacre

You can also explore the area on Google Maps

Here is a picture of the crime scene : Pic Link

Has anyone other than French police been back to the crime scene to test this scenario? Did they test it with the same make and model/caliber ww2 era pistol?

Not known. However as this is their investigation and their jurisdiction then I am unsure who else would be permitted to do so?

The French police seem to have corrupted some of the facts, either intentionally or as a result of incompetence.

The UK media seem to agree to some extent with that assertion as does Zaad al-Hilli.

The French police seem to have conveniently spent most of their resources in Britain, focusing on the brother-in-law.

Indeed so.

As for Saad leaving the park up to 5 times a day in the BMW? He was leaving to get cellular service, the biker who discovered the crime scene mentioned not being able to get a signal on his phone.

The cyclist ,Brett Martin, could not get a signal on his mobile phone at the crime scene up on the mountain. But that is some distance from the holiday camp that Saad and family were staying at.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

They did find shell casing,this was how they knew more shots had been fired than had hit the victims or car.

'Uniformed officers closed off the road, the Route de la Combe d’Ire, and forensic technicians gathered shell casings and marked where they fell '

'The shooter had fired 21 times, mostly at a moving vehicle. Seventeen bullets hit people. None of them struck the frame or the doors or the fenders or any other part of the BMW.'

source used corroborated by others.. www.gq.com...

The murderer would also have had to reload 3 times,

Rock bed rivers can also be extremely noisy, especially when descending steep slopes

for example www.youtube.com...