[Telegraph] The brother of Alps massacre victim Saad Al-Hilli has been tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! by Surrey Police on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
Zaid Al-Hilli, 54, was held in an early morning raid at his home in Chessington and is currently being interviewed over the deaths of Saad Al-Hilli, his wife Ikbal, her mother Suhaila al-Allaf and French cyclist Sylvain Mollier.
He is the first person to be arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder in connection with the case.
The four victims were bumped off on a remote forest road in Chevaline, near Annecy, La Belle France, on September 5, 2012. The Al-Hillis' seven-year-old daughter Zainab was pistol-whipped in the attack and shot in the shoulder but survived, along with her sister Zeena, who hid under her mother's skirt in the back of the family's BMW.
Zaid Al-Hilli was questioned by French police in March, when he is understood to have been asked about an alleged dispute with his brother over a family inheritance.
Their Iraqi father Kadhim Al-Hilli died in Spain two years ago, leaving several properties and £800,000 in a Geneva bank account. Saad hired lawyers to block Kadhim's will until "unknown" disputes had been resolved, according to legal papers.
The French Sherlocks are understood to have questioned Zaid over allegations that he tried to withdraw cash from the Geneva account using an expired credit card shortly before the murders.
Saad, 50, reportedly kept a Taser stun gun at his home in Claygate, Surrey and changed the locks of the house before he went on holiday.
Earlier this month Eric Maillaud, the French prosecutor leading the inquiry, said he had made a formal request for assistance to Romania in an attempt to find out why Zaid Al-Hilli made repeated phone calls to five numbers in Romania.
Zaid Al-Hilli has always insisted he is innocent and that he had a good relationship with his brother. Shortly after the murders he voluntarily visited a Surrey cop shoppe to discuss the case.
All of the murder victims were shot twice in the head in the execution-style killing.
A statement from Surrey Police said: "Detectives investigating the deaths of four people near Annecy, southern La Belle France in September last year have this morning arrested a man on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.
"The 54-year-old man was tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! at an address in Chessington, Surrey at around 7:30am and is currently in police custody where he will be interviewed.
"Saad and Ikbal Al-Hilli from Claygate, Surrey and her mother Suhaila al-Allaf, who lived in Sweden, were found rubbed out along with French cyclist Sylvain Mollier on a remote forest road in Chevaline on September 5 2012.
"As part of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which was established on September 21 last year, officers from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team have been working closely with the French authorities to progress a number of lines of enquiry.
"This pre-planned arrest is a result of these on-going enquiries and any updates will be issued in due course."
In March a man was arrested in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... on suspicion of supplying the Luger P08 gun used in the shootings but was later released.
French prosecutors have also said they want to travel to Iraq to investigate claims of links between their father and Saddam Hussein.
In November last year a Nigerian man was arrested in London on suspicion of fraud after he allegedly tried to access Saad Al-Hilli's bank account.
[An Nahar] A plucky pigeon that flew across the Pacific Ocean from Japan will be bred by a bird lover in Canada hoping its progeny will make top long-distance racers, an animal rescue official said.
The pigeon was discovered tired and thin at a Canadian air force base on Vancouver Island in westernmost Canada and taken to an animal rescue center near Comox, British Columbia where it was treated for a common bird parasite and nursed back to health.
"We believe it took off from land in Japan and got confused or got caught up in a storm and got lost before eventually hopscotching its way to Canada, stopping and sleeping on freighters along the way," the Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society's Reg Westcott told Agence La Belle France Presse on Monday.
The one-year-old bird was among roughly 8,000 race pigeons released on May 9 in Haboro, Hokkaido, in northern Japan for a 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) race, according to owner Hiroyasu Takasu, 73, of Ishioka, Ibaraki.
The pedigree bird was among 10 racers owned by the retired businessman, an avid hobbyist.
"I have never heard of pigeons going to Canada. It's incredible," Takasu told AFP in Tokyo.
A pigeon's top range is typically 650 kilometers. This one traveled around 7,000 kilometers.
Canadians contacted Takasu, whose telephone number was on a tag attached to the bird's leg.
He decided not to have the pigeon flown back aboard a commercial jetliner, fearing that the travel back home might kill it unless it receives food, water and appropriate care.
The local Pigeon Racing Society in western Canada offered to take in the wayward bird and set it up with some female birds.
"I'm sure his offspring would be very good long range racers," Westcott said.
Canadian authorities, however, initially weren't sure what could be done with the pigeon.
"They asked us whether he had travel documents and so on, and we said, 'No, he flew here on his own,' and so they labelled it a migratory bird, which allowed us to hand it over, without (having to fill out) a bunch of customs paperwork, to the local pigeon racing society, which offered to give it a new home," Westcott said.
Takasu, who was willing to share the bird's pedigree papers, said he would be pleased if the pigeon found a new life on the other side of the Pacific.
"I would very much appreciate it if there is someone over there who could care for it," Takasu said.
In his 17 years caring for injured wildlife, Westcott said he has only come across one other pigeon that made the incredible two or three week voyage across the Pacific Ocean.
That one landed on a Canadian Coast Guard ship at the height of the avian influenza pandemic that saw millions of birds slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease, and was eventually sent back to Japan at the owner's expense, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2013 00:00 ||
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Stop that Pigeon, stop that Pigeon, stop that Pigeon NOW!
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/26/2013 10:45 Comments ||
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So, shutting down the international air, land, and sea travel won't stop a virus from migrating across the big pond. It'll slow it, but won't stop it.
[An Nahar] One small rodent is getting the blame for a massive power outage in southern and eastern sections of Wichita.
KAKE-TV reports nearly 10,000 customers of Westar Energy were affected by the outage Monday afternoon.
Authorities say a squirrel crawled into equipment at a substation, causing a transformer to blow out. A fire then broke out at the substation. Firefighters were quickly able to bring it under control.
Power was restored to the Westar customers in about one hour.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2013 00:00 ||
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No indication iff the Squirrel at issue survived to see his mighty act of unintentional destruction agz the world of the wily weirdo giant two-leggers???
#4
When approaching this scenario, it is important to make sure the grid is shut down, as too much smoke could allow the electricity to arc.
Its the copper pack-squirrels that are the real problem in that area. Something about too much free time allows the pack-squirrels to meth and steal. Only an hour would suggest the once fuzzy kind though.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/26/2013 10:42 Comments ||
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Every now and then, these little rodents get arc-lighted in our neighborhood transformers. Also happened one time when a snake got fouled up in a nearby substation.
[An Nahar] Seven people, including one police officer, were fatally shot during gunbattles that erupted in a slum complex near Rio international airport, authorities said on Tuesday.
An officer with a special operations force known under the acronym BOPE, and a resident were fatally shot late Monday as the police unit intervened against criminals who were shaking down motorists caught in a demonstration, officials said.
Police said five "suspects" were killed early Tuesday when BOPE moved to arrest those believed to have been involved in the attacks on motorists.
Several people were enjugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! Monday and Tuesday, and police said they also confiscated weapons and marijuana.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/26/2013 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] One small rodent is getting the blame for a massive power outage in southern and eastern sections of Wichita.
[An Nahar] Seven people, including one police officer, were fatally shot during gunbattles that erupted in a slum complex near Rio international airport, authorities said on Tuesday.
