Mother's agony at Gulf trip

By ALISON HORWOOD

Call it a mother's intuition, but Barbara Hopa knew.

When her 28-year-old son, Aaron, cut his summer holiday short to take up a diving contract in the Persian Gulf, she said: "Don't go."

Mrs Hopa and her husband, Jim, had raised their three children to take on challenges, but this time something was wrong.

On January 6, 1999, Aaron called at his parents' Geraldine home near Timaru to say goodbye. He hated having his photo taken, but Mrs Hopa persuaded him to pose with his partner, Sally Richards.

Mrs Hopa broke down in tears as Aaron left for the airport.

Six days later, a phone call confirmed her worst fears.

A Singaporean representative from Oceaneering International told Mr Hopa: "I have bad news. Your son and a colleague [British diver Robert Glazzard] are missing from the survey ship. We don't know what's happened."

The information trickled in: Aaron, an athletic young man and experienced industrial diver who worked around the world, had accidentally drowned.

But the grief-stricken Hopa family took on the United Arab Emirates authorities, determined to prove foul play was involved.

It was a 20-month battle that saw Mr Hopa travel to Singapore, Dubai and Britain - a battle that yesterday saw its first victory.

Timaru coroner Edgar Bradley said Aaron died as a result of an unlawful act by person or persons unknown.

He died on board the MV Seabulk Hercules as a result of an upper airway obstruction due to extensive force and his body was dumped into the Persian Gulf, the coroner said.

Mr Bradley said claims at a hearing in Britain this year that Robert was involved in heroin were unsubstantiated and not linked to Aaron.

The coroner has asked New Zealand police to keep the file open until Dubai police finish investigations.

Outside the hearing yesterday, Mr Hopa, a senior police constable in Geraldine, said: "Someone knows what went down, who killed the boys for what reason. As parents we will not rest until the truth is out."

Mr Hopa's quest for the truth took him to Dubai a week after Aaron disappeared. He discovered Aaron and Robert were hired by Texas-based company Oceaneering International on instructions from an English firm, BMT Edon Liddiard Vince.

Their brief was to survey the sunken wreck of a Russian ship, 80km from the coast of Dubai in United Arab Emirates waters. The assessment was for insurance purposes but Mr Hopa said the trail went cold when he tried to trace who commissioned it.

The Kapitan Sakharov sank in 1993 following a fire or explosion. Its cargo was unknown but something on board was strong enough to kill fish in the area.

Logbooks say that around midnight on January 7, Aaron, Robert and 28 other crew left Jebel Ali near Dubai on board the Hercules. As the only industrial divers on board, they would use remotely operated vehicles to survey the wreck.

Over the next few days, tests were carried out by sidescan sonar.

On January 10, the Hercules returned to Dubai for repairs.

The next morning, neither Aaron nor Robert reported for breakfast.

According to the log book, the Hercules docked at Jebel Ali port at 9 am but nobody noticed the pair were missing until 2 pm.

The crew were mustered at 5 pm. Dubai police arrived at 9 pm.

According to police statements, a cook and a surveyor were the last two people to see Aaron and Robert alive. At 2.15 that morning they were part of a social gathering on deck, listening to music and drinking rum.

On January 20, Robert's body was found floating in the West Fatah Field of the Persian Gulf. He was wearing a pair of blue underpants and a watch.

Six days later, Aaron's body, naked except for a bone carving, was found in the same area.

The crew said in statements that the pair fell overboard. Autopsies (non-invasive for religious reasons) found no evidence of foul play and Dubai police concluded it was accidental drowning.

Mr Hopa had one thing to say to police. "If you think I am going to roll over and accept that - you don't know me."

He toured the Hercules and said the chest-high protective railings make it impossible to fall off. There was no evidence of a freak storm. Both men were fit and had received survival training by Oceaneering International.

On February 19, Aaron's body was returned to New Zealand and examined by Christchurch forensic pathologist Dr Martin Sage.

Dr Sage told the hearing yesterday that the throat injuries were of life-threatening severity, similar to those made by a karate-chop or a blow with an object.

A British pathologist also found Robert had injuries consistent with strangulation but a later coroners hearing found his cause of death to be inconclusive.

By April, New Zealand and Manchester police had compared notes and Christchurch Detective Inspector Dave Haslett travelled to Dubai.

Now retired, he told the hearing yesterday that one or more of the 28 crew knew the truth. "There was a distinct possibility the men were killed in their cabins during a drink-induced sleep and dumped overboard."

Dubai police had reopened the case, but the crew were spread worldwide.

Mr Haslett's replacement, Detective Inspector Rob Pope, said it was unlikely an officer would return to Dubai. New Zealand police had no power of prosecution there.