White Helmets founder found dead in Istanbul

Most coverage reads like this, following glowing tributes to the Al Qaeda allied head-choppers staged ‘rescuers’, although the Independent cuts right to the ‘Russians claim’ chase.

‘James Le Mesurier: White Helmets backer found dead near his home in Istanbul; Former army officer helped start the White Helmets, credited with saving thousands of lives in Syria (with video evidence of the group’s heroics)

A former British army officer, who helped start the “White Helmets”, an emergency response group in Syria, has been found dead near his home in Istanbul, just days after the Russian foreign ministry menaced him, accusing him of being a spy.

James Le Mesurier, 48, was the director of Mayday Rescue charity that trained members of the Syria Civil Defence, nicknamed the White Helmets, playing a major role in its creation in Turkey in 2013.

He was awarded an OBE for his work helping Syrians three years later.

The police have yet to confirm how Mr Le Mesurier died, but he is believed to have fallen from the balcony of his apartment in the Turkish city at dawn on Monday.

His death comes just three days after he was publicly attacked by Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, who on Friday claimed he was a “former agent of Britain’s MI6, who has been spotted all around the world”.

He and the White Helmets had been the subject of a disinformation campaign spearheaded by Moscow and their allies in Damascus for years.”

From the BBC on Nov. 11:

What do we know about Le Mesurier’s death?

Mr Le Mesurier’s body was found at about 04:30 local time (01:30 GMT) on the street near his home and office in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district on the European side of the city.

He was found with fractures to his head and legs, Turkish media say, and is believed to have fallen from his balcony.

A “comprehensive” investigation has been launched, the Istanbul governor’s office says.

But the Syrian government and its allies Russia and Iran have accused the White Helmets of openly aiding terrorist organisations and the Russian foreign ministry last week accused Mr Le Mesurier of being a former agent of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6.”

“The Russian allegation was strongly denied on Monday by Karen Pierce, the UK ambassador to the UN, who said: “The Russian charges against him, that came out of the foreign ministry that he was a spy, are categorically untrue.”

(H/T Caitlyn Johnstone) While the IK papers only hinted at it, the Washington Examiner got right to the heart of the issue:

Did Russia kill White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier?’ by Tom Rogan, November 11, 2019

“I ask the question for three reasons. Russia uniquely fits the motive, method, and means profile here. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government despised Le Mesurier, the apparent method of his death fits with Russian intelligence service tactics, and those Russian services have the particular means to have killed him.

Let’s start with the motive.

Russia hates Le Mesurier because he was instrumental in establishing the White Helmets civilian rescue service. The White Helmets operate in Syria, helping to save civilians suffering under attack from Syrian regime forces and their Russian and Iranian allies. The Russians despise the White Helmets because they obstruct Russia from killing civilians to force the Syrian resistance into submission. Last week, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs attacked Le Mesurier on Twitter, accusing him of being a British intelligence officer and a terrorist.

Now consider the method.

A newspaper well-sourced with the Turkish government, Milliyet, reports that police believe Le Mesurier fell or was pushed from a fatal height. The newspaper also says Le Mesurier’s face was cut and that his hands and feet were broken. If true, that suggests a struggle and that Le Mesurier was pushed. That’s notable because Russian government assassins love throwing people out of windows.” [snip]

“Russian intelligence retains a significant presence on Turkish soil. In part this is because Turkey is a nominal NATO ally, in part it’s because Istanbul is a major global intelligence playground. But while the Syrian and Iranian intelligence services share in Russia’s motive against Le Mesurier, their officers and agents would struggle to conduct an apparently clean kill such as this. They would also fear significant political blowback from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.”

Alternately:

‘Narrative Managers In Overdrive After Death Of White Helmets Founder’, Caitlin Johnstone, Nov. 12, 2019 is an exhaustive exposé with many dozens of links, and she recommends this Vanessa Beeley video: ‘The White Helmets Are A Propaganda Construct’

Corbettreport.com has the transcript (scroll down a bit).

You can click through 21st century wire’s White Helmets oeuvre here.

Who are Syria’s White Helmets? Who funds them? Are they really the ‘first responders’ that the western mainstream claim they are? Are their videos designed as propaganda to drum-up calls for US and UK military intervention in Syria? Interested readers can search this archive of over 250 White Helmet-related articles and videos, with over 3,000 research links – exposing what is likely to be one of the biggest NGO frauds in history…

I’ll feature this one from Nov. 11, 2019: ‘Founder of White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, is Found Dead in Istanbul, 21WIRE.TV | The mainstream media are already rife with speculation as to the cause of death of this high-profile British military establishment figure.’, although the site features the Oct. 23 news that Boss Tweet had gifted the ‘Terrorist Adjunct’ brave White Helmets  with $4.5 million American dollars.

They open with Tweet by the White Helmets and Mark Urban, neither are clickable, but I did find this that Henningsen and friend speak about in the video, and a more recent one:

Back to 21st Century Wire:

“Speculation is rife as to various conspiracies, as British mainstream journalists already drifting out loose talk of ‘state actor’ involvement (presumably they mean Syria or Russia), but Turkish authorities appear to be leaning towards suicide. Some mainstream establishment pundits are already attempting to blame Le Mesurier’s death as a nefarious ‘Russian information campaign’ and dissenting alternative media coverage of him and the White Helmets as somehow being, as BBC journalist Mark Urban puts it, “a prelude to murder.

UK Column News co-hosts Mike Robinson and Patrick Henningsen ask some questions, and also place this latest incident into a wider context of western foreign policy. Watch (just under 6 minutes):

Craig Murray on Nov. 12 had opined that:

“Unfortunately he worked in a profession where you can very quickly move from an asset to a liability. Le Mesurier’s usefulness to Western security services, Israel and their Gulf allies came to an end when the jihadist headchoppers to whom Le Mesurier had been providing logistic support and invaluable propaganda, lost their last secure footing in Syria. That the white helmets worked hand in glove with the extreme jihadists, and moved out wherever they moved out, is beyond dispute as a matter of fact, whatever the state of denial of the mainstream media. That there is now nowhere in Syria that people can go around executing Christians with impunity, and simultaneously now nowhere that the White Helmets can operate, is not the coincidence the mainstream media affect to believe. Some of them possibly do believe it. As a wise man once observed, it is amazing what people can believe when their job depends on it.

Having stopped being useful, Le Mesurier became much more of a liability after Turkey took over further control of former jihadist controlled areas in Northern Syria. The chances of Turkey obtaining both documentary and first person testamentary evidence of the relationship between the White Helmets, the jihadists, and western and allied intelligence services increased substantially. Indeed I have reason to believe Turkey may already have done so. His potential liability to his former employers ratcheted up. This resulted in his death. Whether he was killed or took his own life from the resultant stress, I have no information at present.”

He also wrote that he’ll try to discover more from his contacts in Turkey.

The White Helmets on Twitter

Vanessa Beeley on Twitter

Le Mesurier on WikiSpooks

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Pricknick's picture

Good riddance.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

wendy davis's picture

@Pricknick

to that.

i'll add this from vanessa beeley on twitter: ‘Sir James Le Mesurier Takes a Header; Propagandists Mourn and Conspire’, November 13, 2019, syria news

"Le Mesurier’s Mayday notes its “largest programme is in Syria, where we support a network of volunteer rescue workers known as Syria Civil Defence aka The White Helmets,” while — ominously — stating its tentacles are also to be found in Somalia and Lebanon.
This international non-profit claims to have “built” the White Helmets as the “emergency response” though nowhere does it offer an explanation of why this armed gang cannot perform CPR, cannot bag, do not grasp the fundamentals of spinal precautions and do not have a visible stethoscope in any of its countless photographic opportunities.

Since the initial report of Le Mesurier’s death, the self-appointed keepers of moral decency have deployed throughout social media, to reign fire and brimstone upon the heads of those refusing to wail crocodile tears: You are vile! Don’t you know that he has a family! Look at these seizure-inducing graphics to let you know who to condemn!

Oddly, these are the same ilk who care not a whit for the families of Syrian soldiers kidnapped, tortured, murdered by members of Le Mesurier’s criminal Helmets, nor of the families of the martyred soldiers whose bodies were psychotically abused. This fraud righteous group misdirected its empathy to the kidnappers of Syrian children, who were used in grizzly snuff-porn propaganda, murdered on camera in Khan Sheikhoun, 4 April 2017.

.........................................................

“The following short video shows the small street where Le Mesurier lived. Note the security bars on the ledge of his home, to prevent falling. Note, also, the relatively short distance to the cobblestones.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er2mQ1j3c_Y&feature=emb_logo

.........................................................

“There are also scattered rumblings among some who imagine Le Mesurier was murdered because he somehow knew too much or — more optimistically — he was somehow about to spill the beans.

Everything that we need to know about James Le Mesurier, we already know: He created an international slush fund for an armed gang of fake first responders — killers, kidnappers, organ traders — to deploy among the various factions of al-Qaeda in Syria. For his work, the queen of the imperial world rewarded him.”

you may remember that both Democracy Now! and the Intercept went Gaga! for the al quaeda head-chopper Helmets.

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@Pricknick

Maybe so, but that means whatever knowledge he had - including that which might implicate who his actual backers/handlers were is gone with him.

Well, Netanyahu and MbS can probably sleep easier.

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Steven D's picture

I find it difficult to believe anything coming from mainstream media outlets in light of all the stories from alternative media showing the falsity of the claims made regarding the White Helmets.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

would cause less stress in the readers
if death were not in the title?
Just sayin'
Thanks for digging in deep w/issues.

por ehemplo...
White Helmet founder exposed

maybe leave the dead part out

sorry, meant to post to the main thread
got here instead, options not available to change

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wendy davis's picture

@QMS
now that would be abominable coverage to what? 'spare readers' sensibilities?. he's DEAD! these are not rumors of his death having been greatly exaggerated.

do you remember the suppressed OPCW reports on the 'assad gasses his people in douma?' blown away by TWO whistleblowers? sure, it was the white helmets, stars of stage and screen.

on edit:: now this is exposure (it wasn't embeddable):

David Miller‏ @Tracking_Power
Replying to @ChrisDYork

"Maybe you forgot this? Was it not also the case that Len Phillips (@LenP91535865) leader of OPCW Team Alpha from 2015-17, met regularly in Turkey with James Le Mesurier. The purpose of the meetings was - amongst other things - to provide 'witnesses' to alleged CW attacks?"

6:46 AM - 14 Nov 2019

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@wendy davis
Didn't mean to make you angry, sorry.
That was just a post to suggest a toning-down
make it more friendly to sensitive minds

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wendy davis's picture

@QMS

will live in infamy in my mind forever. not cross-posting here from the café for two weeks, then trying again...may have been a failed experiment.

but so it goes, as kurt vonnegut was so often wont to say...

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@wendy davis n/t

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

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wendy davis's picture

@QMS

just shocked: i was agape, aghast, and agog. it's hard to imagine that anyone would be overly-sensitive to the war criminal's death; maybe you hadn't read the OP?. but your comment did cause endless giggles in our house, so there's that.

i will say that the story that le mesurier was taking anti-depressants and likely committed suicide doesn't track for me, in that such a sociopath getting depressed seem highly doubtful.

from RT yesterday FWIW: Assad likens ‘suicide’ of White Helmets founder to EPSTEIN & other high-profile mystery deaths

"Assad was referring not just to Epstein and Le Mesurier, but also to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden – originally trained by the CIA to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan – and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who spent time in American custody in the notorious Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib prisons in Iraq. All these “had been killed chiefly because they knew major secrets,” the Syrian leader argued.

While Epstein’s death was officially declared a suicide, celebrity medical examiner Michael Baden threw a wrench into the machine when he declared that the deceased pedophile’s broken hyoid bones likely came from strangulation. Le Mesurier’s death, tentatively ruled a suicide, proved too suspicious for Assad, who believes it is the “work of the secret services.”

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wendy davis's picture

@Steven D

'indie media'. same thing's happened on the OAS/CIA/US coup against evo morales. #DigustingServantsOfImperiaism.

congratulations on the publication of your first book, amigo. ; )

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Steven D's picture

@wendy davis

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

but odd-bodkins, perhaps it's my failing memory, but i thought craig had had a screen shot of the head-chopper's revised wiki page as well. but maybe that was on twitter, and either he or caitlin johnstone had shown it?

regardless, i did like his entry on wikispooks. i do remember that craig had finally asked commenters if he might have gotten too obsessed with his several OPs on 'the philip cross affair'. Nope! they'd all chorused.

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/12/narrative-managers-in-overdrive-...

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

and not even on twitter, although i'd looked t both their accounts.

thank you, miz lizard, given my having thought thinking i'd been gas-lighting myownself. ; )

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something like "....he was believed to have committed suicide with a gunshot to the head, though no weapon was found at the scene"

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

or: 'the coroner declared suicide by hanging, even though the victim's hyoid bone was fractured.'

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wendy davis's picture

‘The Strange Death of White Helmets Founder Leaves Many Questions to Be Answered; Was Le Mesurier murdered after being exposed for knowing too much?
by InfoBriccs November 14, 2019

“The connection between the M16 and the White Helmets is often overlooked by the Western media, but on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry made a startling revelation. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova revealed that “The White Helmets co-founder, James Le Mesurier, is a former agent of Britain’s MI6, who has been spotted all around the world, including in the Balkans and the Middle East. His connections to terrorist groups were reported back during his mission in Kosovo.” A few days later he was found dead…
................................................................
He served in the NATO war against Serbia to defend the ethnic-Albanian terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 2000, who have now turned Kosovo into a heroin ‘smugglers paradise,’ and a hub for human trafficking, organ harvesting and arms trafficking in the attempt to create an anti-Russian “Greater Albania.” However, it was not in Kosovo where he achieved his fame, but rather his dubious work in Syria.

Not only did he establish and develop the White Helmets, but he secured significant funding from the UK, U.S., Turkish, German, Qatari, Dutch, Danish and Japanese governments, and helped raise money on Indiegogo. His deep connections to the British military and his expansive experience as a mercenary serving Gulf dictatorships made him the perfect figure to establish a “rescue group” aimed at legitimizing terrorists operating in Syria and to push for a regime-change intervention.

Along with the White Helmet’s ties to terrorist organizations and faking chemical weapon incidences, the group also has a role in the execution of civilians and using children in their propaganda campaigns. Mesurier was without a doubt a man with deep connections and deep pockets, with every resource available to him from international intelligence agencies and significant experience in supporting terrorists in conflict zones.
..........................................
However, when we look at the way the incident took place, there is every suggestion that this incident was murder, given that there were cuts on his face, fractures on his feet and that he was found dead on the street, according to Turkish media. The probability of murder becomes stronger.

The question then shifts to who might have done? It is too early to say who did it, and anything forth said can only be considered speculation, but the West does have a rich history of making their assets disappear when they are no longer needed.

The White Helmets no longer have a purpose to serve in Syria with the inevitable victory of government forces over the Western-backed terrorists. Rather, the danger the White Helmets pose is a full-scale revelation on how deep their ties with Western and Gulf intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations go. Although revelations are slowly beginning to emerge, Mesurier no doubt had a wealth of knowledge on many dirty secrets related to Syria and the imperialist war against it.”

and yet...they’re still busy ‘digging dead bodies out of rubble' today. "action: take 2!"

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