Even Tony Kevin, loony mate of Mad Margo Kingston admitted in 2002 that the boat was destined to sink from go. However he reasons that the sinking was part of a Howard conspiracy (no doubt aided by Mossad). All this on the SIEV-X site run by an ancient lefty freedom fighter
It's quite straightforward now to construct a most-likely-case scenario for how SIEVX was sunk. Some of the details will have to be corrected over time, but I am confident that the main architecture of the following scenario will stand up.
This 19 meter long asylum-seeker boat was deliberately and by armed force grossly overloaded with around 420 passengers and embarked from Bandar Lampung, Southern Sumatra - a port never before used by people smugglers and therefore safe from any prying media eyes - on 18 October 2001.
It was intended to sink that day or the next with major loss of life, as a powerful deterrent against people smuggling at a time of great stress on Australia's seriously challenged border protection system. I do not know whether there was active sabotage of the boat apart from the inherently highly unstable overloading.
Also the engine may have been set to fail after some hours of operation.
