South African Nuclear facility breach.

Last year - a nuclear research facility in South Africa was breached - Pelindaba is the site where they researched and built nukes during the Apartheid days. The nukes have been destroyed since, but the technology is still researched heavily - for peaceful/ power reasons etc. I reckon, had this happened in the EU or USA it would be huge news. I find it interesting that NECSA has marked the investigation as secret.

It has been a year since two armed gangs launched simultaneous attacks on the Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Pretoria, yet no one has been arrested for the crime that left one man wounded and South Africans wondering what the real motive for the assault was.

Although Pretoria police announced the arrest of three people, including a 17-year-old, in connection with the crime a week after the incident, police this week said no one had been arrested.

Three security guards at Pelindaba were fired earlier in 2008 after an internal investigation found them to be negligent.

During the attack, Anton Gerber, the Pelindaba emergency control room station commander, was shot by the intruders and Ria Meiring, an operator, was assaulted by the four men who had managed to penetrate the secure nuclear facility on the night of November 7, 2007.

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Rob Adam, the chief executive of the National Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa), said at the time that "four armed, technically sophisticated criminals" had entered the Necsa site by cutting the outside fence and slipping through the electric fence.

The attackers had roamed the premises for about an hour, during which they stole a ladder from a fire engine to gain access to the first floor of the emergency control centre through a window.

A computer was stolen and placed on a balcony, then the men moved to the control room where they attacked Gerber and Meiring before fleeing, leaving the computer.

Adam emphasised at the time that it was evident the criminals had prior knowledge of the electronic security systems.

"These activities were captured on surveillance cameras but, unfortunately, not detected by the operators on duty," Necsa had said.

Adam had also vehemently stated that "at no time was the emergency control room systems compromised".

Another, simultaneous breach on the opposite boundary fence was spotted by a security guard. The gang fled in the ensuing shootout.

Gerber and Meiring, his fiance, are suing Necsa for damages and loss of income following their ordeal. Papers filed in the Pretoria High Court in November state that Gerber is claiming R850 000 and Meiring R750 000 from Necsa and the security staff on duty on the night of the attack.

Summonses have been issued against Necsa and a security services manager, security shift supervisor and two camera room operators who were on duty.

According to court papers, the couple are claiming negligence on the grounds that the camera operators were asleep and did not warn them about the trespassers or organise a timeous response. It had taken security guards 24 minutes to respond to their calls for help.

Gerber said during a recent American network television 60 Minutes programme that it took police 10 months to interview him.

Necsa has kept its report on what happened that night secret, only indicating that security has been improved since the attacks at the facility, which houses hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium, remnants of the apartheid government's nuclear bombs dismantled in the early 1990s.

Highly enriched uranium, which was worth millions on the black market as the fuel used in nuclear bombs, was also used in medical research.

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