Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-29

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, one would have to determine the range of mortars, two whether one could actually fire mortars from a wooded area and I would submit that it is not possible to do that, because for mortars you actually need an open area, because when the mortar strikes at anything or hits anything, it will explode.  But if I were to say to you at the operation at Voortrekkerhoogte, when we used the rocket launchers, we sought to strike at the targets within the Voortrekker Military Headquarters.  Often you will find that mortars and rockets are very inaccurate, they have a range and can land within a vast range, and they could be off by as much as a few hundred metres.   In the case of the mortars, depending on the trajectory, the direction of fire, what you had to get over, what you had to lob it over, etc, it could be used, it may not be used.

MR RICHARD: Now taking the height of the wall around Natal Command, which I estimated to be about five metres, 15 feet, would that create an obstruction to a mortar being fired from a clear vantage point, over it?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, again it would depend on your vantage point, it would depend on the trajectory, whether you are on high ground or not, I am not an expert in mortars at all.

MR RICHARD: However to contextualise it, we know from previous evidence that the decision had been made to use a car bomb on this occasion?  Taking into account that there is a parameter wall, did you observe that on the south side, there were cars parked adjacent to the wall?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, the operatives on the ground had reported, and this is not something that we had started only in 1986, long before then, we had asked them to do reconnaissance and to check about the possibility of striking at enemy personnel and we were saying to them "look at concentrations of enemy personnel".  Their report was that the area, it was not possible to strike at concentrations of enemy personnel, because people were not allowed to park around that area.

MR RICHARD: I am putting various propositions to you very shortly, to that it can never be criticised that I did not put propositions to you which I then put to other applicants, and I am not going to go into lengthy debates.  Are you aware that there was another attack which was roughly classifiable as successful on the Natal Command?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: When?

MR RICHARD: Prior to ...

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Will you give us a date and show us where and when it occurred?

MR RICHARD: Let me rephrase the question for the sake of time, are you aware of any other attack on Natal Command?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: I am not aware of it.

MR RICHARD: Thank you.   At page 6 of A1, there is a list which is entitled "Aboobaker - McBride Incidents in KwaZulu Natal", the first two don't concern us as there were no particular victims or injured that we know of but number 3 is the RPG attack on Mobil oil refinery.   We are aware that prior to May 1984, you personally conducted reconnaissance of that target, yes or no?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: You didn't ask a question, you said we are aware that prior to May you conducted reconnaissance.  You didn't ask me a question.

MR RICHARD: I said, I said ...

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Mr Chairperson, if I may please.

CHAIRPERSON: There was a question.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Can you please put questions, I am waiting for you to go on.

MR RICHARD: Yes or no?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR RICHARD: Now, what conclusion did you come to after your reconnaissance?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: At the time the conclusion was it was possible to carry out the attack, it wouldn't have been difficult, however, in the light of the housing around it, and because of the fear of vapour cloud explosions, were we to hit at the refracturing towers, the decision was taken not to carry out that attack.

MR RICHARD: What is a vapour cloud explosion?

MR BERGER: Chairperson, before Mr Ismail answers the question, it is not clear that my learned friend acts for anyone injured during this incident.  Are these questions simply being asked to test Mr Ismail's credibility or is there another purpose for it?

MR RICHARD: Two points are being made, the first is whether I act for anyone of the victims in that category, the second one is whether I am testing Mr Aboobaker's credibility.  The point that I am leading to is that on one occasion it was decided to attack that particular target, and on a later date, it was decided not to.  Is that correct?  The other way around, sorry?

CHAIRPERSON: I think what Mr Berger is raising is why are you asking this, because you are not representing any of the victims in that incident?

MR RICHARD: I believe that as the representative of the victims that I do represent, it is appropriate for me to question for two reasons - one, full disclosure of what happened and number two, to find out why sometime later it was considered appropriate to take the risk of civilian casualties.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think you can answer that.

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: I will answer that.  Mr Chairperson, experience is what    made us change the approach.   At the time when we were first planning for the attacks on refineries, etc, we had no experience.  We had never been through such an operation.  We had to rely on books in this case, we also had a handbook of American Armed Forces which said that if you hit refractunating towers, you could get a vapour cloud explosion.  A vapour cloud explosion would basically be that inside of the refractunator you get the separation of the oil taking place, taking place at a high temperature, there is vapour generated as a result of it, that if that vapour escapes and if it drifts and does not explode immediately, it could drift over a civilian area and that would kill people.

JUDGE PILLAY: What do you mean a civilian area, Mr Ismail?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Well, I am talking of the housing area around it.

JUDGE PILLAY: Residential area?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Residential area.

MR RICHARD: In other words one would have the danger of a fire-ball type phenomena?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Yes.

MR RICHARD: Now on the second occasion ...

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: No, I am coming to that.  With the experience at SASOL, at SASOL 1 for instance, if tanks were hit, you found that what happens is that the fuel escaped and because of any spark that could ignite the fuel, that would start the burning process, but because the fuel is gushing out of the tanks, and those tanks are also contained inside of a well,  the way in which they are built, there is a well and the tank is built inside of it, that this then tends to contain the fuel.  Also that fuel burns immediately, there isn't that much of a vapour cloud created as in the first case, and given that experience, we then felt that it was okay to hit at storages and to attack those.

MR RICHARD: In other words as a result of experience and further research and development, it was decided that an attack on the Mobil oil refinery was permissible?  I then come to item number 7, where I don't represent any of the victims, but again on the basis outlined in relation to item 5, sorry item 6, the previous item, there what we know from the literature, were two limpet mines which did not explode at the same time, could you give us a reason as to why they did not explode at the same time, if they were set to go off at the same time, if their pins were activated at the same time?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: If their pins were activated at the same time, but if the splints inside of them are different, then they would go off at different times, depending on the colour of the splint, the type of splint that was used.  They could go off at any time, depending on the kind of time delay used.  With limpets it was possible to use different time delays.

MR RICHARD: Of what origin were the limpet mines, do you know?

ABOOBAKER ISMAIL: Of Soviet origin.