Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-29

MR RICHARD: I have here a document which will require re-numbering, it is at the moment labelled C, I am not sure what the next exhibit is.

CHAIRPERSON: I think we didn't give a number to the photographs, numbers 72 through to 76, wouldn't it in fact be C, because we had - oh, yes, Section 29 is C, this would be D, yes.

ADV PRIOR: D.

CHAIRPERSON: B1 through to B4 are the statements handed in by Mr Berger.

ADV PRIOR: The photographs having been alluded to, would they not have been ...

CHAIRPERSON: I think we can just refer to them as photographs numbers 72, with their numbers.

ADV PRIOR: As you please Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: You are getting fit, Mr Richard.

MR RICHARD: I am sure the document is familiar to you, but for the sake of the record, please describe what it is?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: It is a table, all the parts that are written in Russian, looks like a table that I had seen previously of the one supplied with the limpet mine, however on the side where it gives the colours of the splints, etc, I do not believe that those translations are correct.

MR RICHARD: However, is it not ...

CHAIRPERSON: If we can just get a description for the record, what is it, is it specifications relating to a limpet mine?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.  Mr Chairperson, what it would give here, would be the colours of the splints, of the little metal plates and across there it would then give the ambient temperatures, you know it ranges from plus 40 to minus 20 degrees, and then it tells you what are the approximate time frames in the first column of each of those temperature ranges.  For instance at an ambient temperature of plus 20 degrees, it would give the average and then from the minimum time to the maximum time.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.   Now taken the ambient temperatures given there, how accurate are those minimum and maximum time periods?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, basically if I read to you minimum and maximum time periods in the case of one, it says a minimum time of 15 minutes, maximum time of two hours and average time of 45 minutes.  In another case it says at 10 degrees for the red, 10 minutes to four hours and 40 minutes, with an average time of one hour and 45 minutes.  One can see that there isn't any great deal of accuracy at all.

MR RICHARD: So then if two identical limpet mines are placed in a room, into which two identical timing slithers or pieces are put in, and are then armed at the same time, no particular person would be able to predict how far about in time they would go off?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No, you would not be able to predict that.  You may actually find that they could go off at different times.

MR RICHARD: Which could be as long as 20 minutes apart?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Or more?

MR RICHARD: Or less, oh yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR RICHARD: And then if we take the nature of a limpet mine, which is a mine with a magnetic device on it, a magnet, which makes it adhere to a steel surface to be precise, another factor that would make it even more dubious, is the different temperatures of the objects onto which it is placed?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: That is so, yes.

MR RICHARD: So when - at the Wentworth substation, when the applicants Mr Webster, sorry Mr McBride and his unit put those two limpet mines, the fact that police who came onto the scene shortly thereafter found another mine which went off, or didn't find it to be more precise, it found them, could as well be accident as planning?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: It could have been accidental, it could also have been out of deliberate action.

MR RICHARD: And in fact from the object of facts that we have, it is impossible to assess which it was from the information that I have outlined to you?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Except for the information that we may have from the operatives.

MR RICHARD: The next incident that I come to is that of number 14, which is on page 8 of A1, that is Mr Webster's escape from Edendale Hospital.   My questions there are as follows - when you trained your soldiers, did you tell them what their duty would be if they were captured?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Well, by and large, comrades were told to resist answering questions, they were told that they would probably be beaten up, tortured, that at all times, they should think about the ANC and be loyal to the ANC and understand the political objectives.  They had to understand that they would find a day in court as well.

MR RICHARD: Was it not also to put it very simply, told to them that their first duty was to escape if they saw the opportunity?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes, I think it was understood.

MR RICHARD: A standard piece of instruction that most soldiers receive as lesson 1?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Hm.

MR RICHARD: Now as you have outlined, they were told of various terrible things that might happen to them after they were caught, now we know or I assume and it will be tested in due course, that Mr McBride and Mr Webster were friends, and associates.  My proposition and question is wasn't it an ordinary and natural thing for Mr McBride to want to rescue his friend?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes, it would be very natural, but at the same time, they were comrades and combatants and I do not see why you wish to infer that any rescue attempt that took place would have been because they were friends only.  They have said and Gordon Webster had said to me personally that he had a pact with Robert and that Robert had gone to his rescue and when Robert had been arrested and he was back in exile and after his recovery, he insisted on his right to go back and rescue Robert, despite the fact that we said to him "you know, such opportunities do not occur so often".  He insisted because he said he had a pact with the unit.

MR RICHARD: We will deal with it again when Mr McBride gives evidence, however as far as you as a witness and as an applicant goes, that is the proposition and question.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: And it has been answered, and I suggest to you that it is because they were comrades in arms.

MR RICHARD: I gave you the opportunity to answer the proposition and I pass to the next sentence.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: And I did.

MR RICHARD: Now the next one I come to is item 15, and there I act for Brenda Klein, the former wife of Pieter Klein, or Mr Klein, and as you might or might not know, Mr Klein sustained brain injuries as a result of shrapnel.  As the applicants there are described, Mr McBride and Mr Lecordier, and you are not directly implicated beyond being politically responsible, there aren't many questions save to say this, would the fact that Mr Klein was at one point in his life a teacher at a school, particularly reserved for coloured persons in terms of the old law, be a sufficient reason to classify him as a justified or a legitimate target?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No, it would not.

MR RICHARD: And then if we add on to that ..

JUDGE PILLAY: Mr Richard, is there any particular reason you would put that to the witness?  Is there a suggestion that Mr Klein was attacked possibly for that reason?

MR RICHARD: The three propositions are teacher, some time police reservist and associated with Labour Party, those are the three factors.  Put together, would they ...

JUDGE PILLAY: My question is, is there any basis upon which you base that last question?

MR RICHARD: On a reading of the various papers with which I was briefed, there is a reference to Mr Klein having been a teacher.

JUDGE PILLAY: Fine, carry on.

MR RICHARD: I have outlined three factors, a some time reservist in the Police Force, associated with the then Labour Party and the teacher factor, would that make him a legitimate target?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Especially because he was a reservist, yes.

MR RICHARD: And if it were on a sporadic and irregular basis, would that alter the factor?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Is there any suggestion that it was sporadic?