Joe Vialls
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Joe Vialls (1944-2005), born Otho Jewell Vialls, was an internet journalist, conspiracy theorist, and a private investigator.
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[edit] Published works
Joe Vialls published a number of books and internet articles detailing a wide range of conspiracy theories. His published books include Deadly Deception at Port Arthur, The Murder of Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie and the Bombing of Pan Am 103.
[edit] Notability
Vialls' is most notable for his book on the Port Arthur Massacre. [1][2] This suggested that there was a cover up by the Australian government, led by John Howard, to "take guns from their rightful owners".[3][4]
Vialls - an aircraft engineer by trade - claimed that he was a private investigator dedicated to "exposing media disinformation," and made many claims in his reports concerning official explanations for events such as the first Bali bombing, and the bombings of the Australian embassy and Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital.
Vialls asserted that the explosives that authorities claimed were used in the Indonesian bombings were not powerful enough to have caused the damage and casualties that resulted. He claimed to demonstrate from photographs of the aftermath of each of the bombings that a micronuke from Mossad's Dimona research and development facility in the Negev desert had been used. However, by Vialls' own admission he was a combat veteran living on a small disability pension, and therefore was unlikely to have travelled to any of the bomb sites in question - or sites of his other investigations - to conduct forensic analysis.
Indeed, in most of his reports Vialls does not claim to have travelled to any of the sites where incidents he investigated occurred to analyse them. While Vialls claims to have been a private investigator for many years, he listed no relevant qualifications. He based most of his investigations on sources that he claimed could not be identified due to their sensitivity, and on information from the media he purported to discredit.
However, Vialls' investigations received popular support among Muslims in Indonesia, many of whom cited his findings as fact. Hardline Indonesian internet forum Swara Muslim (Muslim voice) wrote an opinion piece stating that Vialls' claim that the bombing of the Australian embassy was conducted by the CIA and Mossad and was "based on solid fact."[5] Hardline Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir told ABC radio that he believed Vialls' theory regarding the first Bali bomb - for his involvement in which Ba'asyir was jailed - was a correct one.
Convicted Bali bomber Amrozi also told an Indonesian court that the device he detonated could not have done the damage evident after the blast, and speculated that a nuclear device might have been responsible.
Vialls also claims to have written a letter to Mohammed Al-Fayed claiming that his son, Dodi Al-Fayed, and Princess Diana had been killed to prevent an alliance developing between England's royal family and a powerful Muslim family.
[edit] Controversy
Many of the investigations Vialls conducted cite unidentified sources, and many of the conclusions that he reached in his investigations relied on the findings of his previous investigations.
A number of Vialls' findings were challenged in various internet media, while the mass media generally ignored him.
A website conducted an investigation into Vialls' background, and revealed that he had a somewhat controversial and mysterious past.[6]The website found that Vialls had been cited by various sources as an expatriated US military analyst based in Australia, an ex-British private security expert, a British aeronautical engineer, an Australian-based freelance journalist with over 30 years direct experience in international military and oilfield operations, and a former member of the Society of Licensed Aeronautical Engineers (London). Its investigations found that Vialls might have become unwittingly involved in a Cold War espionage operation while working on a sensitive oil drilling operation in India.
Vialls claimed to have suffered microwave radiation and had post-hypnotic suggestions implanted electronically by unknown controllers, whom he suspected of working for the CIA, the investigation found, citing this report[7]The report said Vialls had been treated at the London-based Medical Foundation for the Care of Torture Victims, and that doctors had verified that he was susceptible to clandestine hypnosis and post-hypnotic suggestions.
One website revealed - citing media reports from the West Australian newspaper - that Vialls had been the CEO of an engine technology company, which attempted a takeover of the paper, but later declared bankruptcy. The post revealed that official documents recorded the name of a resident at Vialls' address - freely available from his website - as Otho Jewell Vialls, and did not mention the name Joe. The documentation also listed at the address Marilyn Ann Vialls, identified as his spouse. The report comprehensively examines Vialls' background, and casts doubts over many of his claimed qualifications and employment. It also notes that, although Vialls published many reports allegedy linking Israel to major international incidents, the Israeli media ignored him completely.
The accuracy of Viall's claims has also been disputed in some quarters. Another website [8] also wrote a comprehensive report, rebutting Vialls' claims that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.[9]The rebuttal centred mainly on Vialls' comparison of the Pentagon crash with an incident in which an Israeli El Al 747-200F cargo plane, flight 1862, crashed into a 12-story apartment block in the Amsterdam suburb of Bijlmer on October 4, 1992. It claimed that Vialls' report was both scientifically and factually innaccurate.
Website shootersnews.org disputed Vialls' more famous claims regarding the Port Arthur massacre for much the same reasons. [10]
In his investigation of the first Bali bomb, Vialls cited an opinion piece written by Jakarta Post "editor" Robert S. Finnegan, who claims to be an internationally-published investigative reporter with over two decades of experience , reproducing the piece in his report. [11]
The article is attributed to Finnegan as editor of the Jakarta Post, Indonesia's largest newspaper, on Vialls' site. However, while the Jakarta Post may be Indonesia's largest English-language daily, it is far smaller in terms of circulation than its Bahasa Indonesia counterpart Kompas, and ranks behind even many "yellow media" - a local term for cheap, low-quality tabloids in popularity.
Employment records show that Finnegan held the capacity of copy editor at the Jakarta Post, which employs exclusively Indonesian field reporters. Copy editors at the Post - which is widely derided for poor reporting standards and bribe-taking by its journalists - are officially listed at the Immigration Department under the job description "language consultant," and indeed hold little or no executive editing power. Their main task is to correct the grammar and usage of English words by Indonesian field reporters. The Jakarta Post previously paid its copy editors around 500,000 rupiah (about USD55) for contributions such as opinion pieces and restaurant and music reviews, but has discontinued this practice.
[edit] Hacked off
Vialls claimed that many of his articles were hacked off his website years ago,[12] and that he was banned by Yahoo! and Paypal. Indeed, his original Yahoo! site remains unavailable today. However, Vialls' new site still boasts 170 articles starting with The Crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens and ending with Bush, Blair & Howard Photo Atrocities. Vialls was an avowed anti-Zionist, alleging for instance that Zionists used a nuclear device in Bali. He also claimed most kidnapping of hostages in Iraq was done by the CIA and Mossad.
Vialls included in a page of reports, that he claimed were hacked off, an animation that he produced himself, entitled "Israeli Heaven." The video is poorly produced and edited, and consists of unattributed photographs of supposed victims of Israeli incursions in Palestine. Text flashes abve the photographs, inviting viewers to move to Israel, where they will be able to murder Arabs at will without fear of consequence.
Many of Vialls' investigations blamed significant world events - such as the 2004 Asian Tsunami - on joint CIA/Mossad operations, and maintained in disclaimers on his site that his reports were written in the interest of public safety. In one of his reports entitled "Fortress America," Vialls responded to allegations of antisemitism - without identifying the party or parties who supposedly made such allegations - by claiming that Israelis who opposed Zionism would be killed under the operation that he detailed. By revealing details of the supposed operation, whereby Zionists planned to conquer much of North and South America and Canada, Vialls claimed that he was protecting the lives of those Israelis, and was therefore not antisemitic.[13]
In other investigations, Vialls supposedly proved that such esoteric happenings as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and a scandal involving the wearing of a swastika by Prince Harry were Zionist plots.
Despite his supposed exposés of secretive plots whereby the Israeli and U.S. governments murdered many thousands of innocent citizens and then covered their traces via mind manipulation and deceit, Vialls died a peaceful death of natural causes in Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia in July 2005.
[edit] Three major investigations
- The first major Vialls investigation was into the 1984 murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in St James's Square. He concluded that the fatal shots came not from within the embassy but from a penthouse flat – next door but one to the Libyan embassy – and were fired by CIA/Mossad agents.
- The second investigation concerned the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and day-by-day summaries of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, resulting in a theory about the true cause of the bombing. Again, Vialls linked the CIA and Mossad to the crime.
- The third major investigation was into the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania, Australia. Vialls claimed that an intellectually-impaired man, Martin Bryant, was wrongly convicted for this crime, and without a proper trial.
Joe Vialls died on July 17, 2005, after a period of illness.[14]
