Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-29

MR RICHARD: 1898.  There is no line number, but it is about a third down the page
"... Maj Botha succeeded in removing the grenade which was made to appear to be the detonating device.  This was taken off in a vehicle with a receptacle designed to take care of such emergencies.  It was exploded by Maj Botha at ten o'clock the following morning, not having exploded before then."
	Now we know from that part of the judgment it was a device capable of exploding.

MR DEHAL: No Mr Chairperson, I object.  Maj Botha caused it to be exploded, because it was not capable of being exploded.  Maj Botha took it away, dealt with it in a manner that would cause it to explode and end that device there.

MR RICHARD: My proposition and question that I want to put to the applicant is straight forward and simple, if it had exploded, would not that have been an attack aimed at a civilian target, the premise to it is if it had exploded, and I leave the question there.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, the way I understand what is being said here, that it was probably put there as a hoax, as a threat without it being able to go off, if it was able to go off and if there were people around, yes, then that could be construed as such, but being conscious that this could be so, from what I have just heard, it seems as though they did not want it to be so, they simply wanted to say to people this is something they could do, if they chose, but they did not choose it to be so.

MR RICHARD: I asked a straight forward and simple question, premised by the word if.   My question is if that device had exploded on the fourth floor of the Parkade, would that not have been an attack on a civilian target?  That is the question?

JUDGE PILLAY: Hasn't he answered it?

MR RICHARD: I submit that what he said was not an answer, it was an evasion.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: I submit that is my answer.

CHAIRPERSON: I think in any event it would just be, we have heard of propaganda bomb, propaganda bombs which are placed under motor vehicles, so I suppose it would depend Mr Richard on the place, the time, whether there was a remote control to see that it was going to set off that no one was around, you know, because the whole lot of circumstances, it is not so simple and straight forward.

MR RICHARD: I leave the incident and proceed.   I do not know if it is my penultimate question, but probably the second or third last.   What sort of relationship did you have with Mr Webster?  Was it a friendly, supportive relationship?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes, I always had a friendly, good relationship with him.  I know that after his arrest and his rescue and when he was in Zambia, he was very insistent on wanting to come back inside the country, I was opposed to it.  One, I felt that the police knew him, they would, I thought that they may expect that he may come and try to rescue Robert McBride again and I basically tried to dissuade him from coming back inside the country, but our working relationship was always very cordial.

MR RICHARD: Please bear with me as I decide whether to close at this point.   May I beg the indulgence of referring to my clients before I say no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, indeed Mr Richard.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.   Thank you, no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR RICHARD

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Richard.  Mr Prior, do you have any questions you would like to ask?

ADV PRIOR: Thank you Mr Chairman, there are a few matters I wish to canvass, they are not many.  Mr Ismail, what struck me going through the vast records that were at our disposal, was a comment made by Gordon Webster during his trial, when he was led by his senior counsel at the time, and I refer to bundle A2 at page 1291 - sorry 1290 and 1291.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Chairperson, I don't believe I have that bundle.

ADV PRIOR: And 1292.  Maybe I can just put it to you in the way I thought it appropriate.  He was being asked, he had given evidence that he was at odds with you regarding placing a car bomb in Durban, because he didn't, he wasn't convinced that the indiscriminate loss of life was justified and he indicated that you were unhappy with that reaction of his and at page 1292 he indicated between lines 10 to 20, that on a question by his senior counsel
"... but the suggestion by Rashid that you put a car bomb seemed so directly in conflict with your concern to save lives, how do you explain that? Why should Rashid have said this?"
	Then he said -
"... I think Rashid is a blood-thirsty person.  This is my opinion."
	At the level of, are you able to comment on that, and possibly as I say, it caught my eye while going through those bundles, if you can.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, if I may, I think these are records of a person who is there in an apartheid court, having been through racist interrogators, who had been tortured and had been put, and we don't know whether it was ever put to him that if he didn't agree to make such a statement, what would happen to him.  We don't know.

ADV PRIOR: It would seem that he was being led by his counsel at that time, when he gave that evidence.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Well, he was up there for his life, people say many things when they have to, when they stare that in the face.

ADV PRIOR: Certainly by your count that he wasn't ill-disposed to the notion of a car bomb placed in Durban?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No.

ADV PRIOR: Was there ever any arrangement between the cadres within Special Ops, that should one be captured and possibly if an escape could not be effected, that that person should be killed in order to silence him?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No, there was no specific instruction in that regard.

ADV PRIOR: Why I raise that, it also, while going through the bundles, A3 at paginated page 18 a statement by Matthew Lecordier had indicated that
"... Robert said that if he could not get Steve out of the hospital, he would have to kill him because he knows a lot of important things, but he did not say what."
	But you have answered the question, you were unaware of any arrangement?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: I was not aware of those arrangements, you know, perhaps that was Mr Webster's way of dealing with his operatives.

ADV PRIOR: If I may be bold to summarise what has been going on for the better part of two days, if I understand the instruction given by the high command or the upper command of MK was that at all times, the target should be aimed at Military personnel or Security personnel?  That remained the primary target?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

ADV PRIOR: In the execution of that objective, should civilians be killed or injured,  those were certainly regretted and regrettable casualties, but they would not serve as to dissuade one from carrying out the operation?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: That is so, yes.

ADV PRIOR: At all times, on my understanding of what has been going on and the evidence that you have tendered, is that the members of MK on the ground, Special Ops in particular, were at all times aware of that objective and obviously the operations that we have seen, were aimed at fulfilling that particular objective?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Of striking at Security Forces?

ADV PRIOR: Yes.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

ADV PRIOR: Obviously where a wholly or purely civilian target was attacked, then obviously that out of the nature of the target, would fall outside those parameters?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: And that is why when the NEC became concerned about such things, they then - Military Headquarters was instructed to contact all the front areas, to contact the people in those areas and to say to them and to instruct the units, to meet with units and to say to them to strike at pure civilian targets was not acceptable.