Posted on 11/09/2007 4:02:45 PM PST by Lexington Green
A brazen attack by four gunmen on the Pelindaba nuclear facility has left a senior emergency officer seriously injured.
Anton Gerber, Necsa emergency services operational officer spoke to the Pretoria News from his hospital bed hours after the attack.
He was shot in the chest when the gunmen stormed the facility's emergency response control room in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The shooting comes four months after Necsa's newly appointed services general manager Eric Lerata, 43, was gunned down in front of his Montana home after returning from a business trip in France.
Pelindaba is regarded as one of the country's most secure national key points.
It is surrounded by electric fencing, has 24-hour CCTV surveillance, security guards and security controls and checkpoints.
The attack comes as the country prepares to preside over an International Atomic Energy Agency convention on nuclear safety.
The convention is aimed at achieving a high level of global nuclear safety via safety related technical co-operation; establishing and maintaining effective defences in nuclear installations against potential radiological hazards and preventing accidents with radiological consequences.
A visibly shaken Gerber, who was rushed to Eugene Marais hospital, on Thursday said that he was sitting in the control room with his fiancée Ria Meiring when he heard a loud bang.
Meiring, who was working nightshift, is the supervisor of the control room.
Gerber said he kept Meiring company. "I do not like it when she is at work at night and I go with her to keep her company and ensure that she is safe," he said.
Describing the attack Gerber said they were inside the electronically sealed control room when they heard a loud bang.
They then spotted the gunmen coming into the facility's eastern block.
It is believed that the attackers gained access to the building by using a ladder from Pelindaba's fire brigade and scaling a wall.
The men are thought to have forced open a window by pulling out several louvers.
Pushing Meiring underneath a desk, Gerber attacked two of the gunmen as they forced their way into the control room and ran straight for the control panel.
"I did not know what they were going to do. I just kept on hitting them even when one of them attacked me with a screwdriver.
"I knew that if I stopped they would attack Ria or do something to the panel.
"I could not let anything like that happen," he said.
Unbeknownst to Gerber one of the robbers had shot him in the chest as he fought them off.
The bullet narrowly missed his heart breaking a rib before puncturing his lung. Doctors said the bullet missed his spine by 2cm.
Gerber, who at one stage thought he was going to die, said he had been very scared.
"The facility is meant to be safe. There are security guards, electric fences and security control points. These things are not meant to happen," he said.
Necsa spokesperson Chantal Janneker confirmed the attack.
She declined to say how the gunmen had gained access to the facility or whether they had stolen anything.
Janneker said Necsa was conducting an internal investigation into the attack.
Once the police investigation was complete Necsa would divulge what happened, she said.
Later in the afternoon, Pretoria News was phoned by a man identifying himself as a Necsa legal adviser, saying the newspaper will be breaching the National Keypoints Act by publishing the story.
He said that Necsa may seek a court order preventing dissemination of the story.
He claimed that the interview with Gerber was "unethical" as "he was under sedation and thus incoherent" when it was conducted.
Pretoria News sought and was granted permission to interview Gerber, by hospital management, and Gerber himself. While he was obviously in pain, he appeared coherent and made sense throughout the interview.
His recall of the events was sequential and to the point. He also agreed to have his picture taken in his hospital bed.
North West police spokesperson Superintendent Louis Jacobs said that no arrests had been made.
"A case of armed robbery and attempted murder are being investigated," he said.
Those Amish sure do get around don’t they?
Could there be a cash order out to the mercenary community for some fissionable material ?
This story is of major importance if it is even mostly accurate.
I’m sure more will come out later, but there were armed guards at the facility. It remains to be seen what actually took place here. If there weren’t normally armed guards in the area he was in as a rule, I guess it’s a little unfair to fault him for not being armed to visit and accompany his girl friend.
There are questions. I’ll be anxious to see the full story myself. Good point.
This is a 20 MW test reactor. Most power reactors run 650 to 1200 MW, so the core contains very roughly 1/50th the nuclear material of a power reactor. it’s in a pool, a configuration with which I am familiar and have first hand experience, but I am not familiar with a “tank-pool” configuration.
This was a trained team, with a rehearsed plan for entry, a plan that worked.
It is clear the team knew what to expect, which indicates familiarity with the plant, quite possibly inside knowlege, even possibly inside assistance.
This may very well be connected with an succesful assassination attempt.
This trained team got within feet of their objective, the control panel, though we don’t know what their plan was.
First guess, Al Qaeda.
Second guess, enviro-terrorists, like Greenpeace.
Head’s up, people, whatever was attempted here is of grave concern to the entire planet.
btt
Plans are to transfer 5,000 Mardi Gras surge revelers to Brazil to re-enforce the 20,000 revelers who are keeling over in large numbers.
ping
lol. I was wondering that too. Funny how threads diverge sometimes. I’m too busy to go back and trace it...
What? Can I get a link to this data?
“Anton Gerber, Necsa emergency services operational officer ...”
So he was also a senior employee at the plant, but offshift. Being an employee, his presence wouldn’t be a security breach. His fiance works nightshift in the control room, well inside what is supposed to be a (electrified fence) secure area. Sounds like he was there more for the “company” part than the “safety” part.
Had he not been there, they might have simply overpowered her without any gunshots. Without gunshots, they might have had the time to force her to create a real problem in the reactor. They may have only run away for fear the security people heard the gunshot and would investigate.
A lot of speculation because the article is pretty thin on facts.
Thank you.
I don’t quite know what to make of this. One wants to jump to conclusions that this was some sort of co-ordinated effort to gain access to possible nuclear materials or plans. But on the other hand, South Africa is a place where police stations get robbed, so it may just purely be a case of robbers rather opportunistically trying to rob the night employees at an out-of-the-way location.
The South African government would want to keep something like this quiet to prevent them from losing the 2010 soccer world cup.
How many people are shot dead in inner cities in America such as Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and L.A.
Sounds like the ragheads best bet to get their hands on things subhumans have no business having.
The week after the pull out from Philly
Why are you moving to Brazil?
C #36
Slightly fewer than in Brazil.
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