Trial Report: Three

The trial of Dr. Wouter Basson began in earnest on Monday 25 October with Basson pleading 'not guilty' to the 61 charges put to him. The prosecution announced that they would not be appealing the Judges decision to drop charges relating to activities in Namibia (for which Basson is said to have qualified for amnesty) and charges relating to activities outside the borders of South Africa. It is possible that the prosecution may appeal the Judgement at the end of the trial.

In his opening address, senior prosecutor Anton Ackerman (SC) told the court that the crimes for which Basson is to be tried cannot be regarded as apartheid crimes since most of the charges relate to Basson's self-enrichment schemes. He conceded however that some of the charges contained in the second volume of the indictment and relating to human rights violations were politically motivated. Ackerman also pointed to Basson's luxury lifestyle implying that it would have been impossible for Basson to maintain such a lifestyle on his civil servant's salary.

The prosecution said that evidence would show that Basson's "cover" of a prosperous businessman, used to set up Project Coast, was not a cloak he donned when acting in the interests of the SADF, but in fact a true reflection of his activity while building up a vast empire of business interests and valuable assets both in SA and abroad.

The first witnesses to appear in court were the South African Narcotics Bureau officers involved in the sting operation, which resulted in Basson's arrest in January 1997. It is interesting to note that the police officers testified that before the deals involving Basson they had never encountered ecstasy capsules in South Africa.

It was widely reported in South Africa that one of the police officers involved in the sting operation, Jacobus Paulos Wiese announced after reluctant testimony that he was sympathetic to the accused and that he had known Basson in Ondangwa in Namibia whilst doing his national military service. The state declined to pronounce him a hostile witness.

Turncoat, Grant Wentzel also took the stand during this week. Wentzel had been a member of a commodities company established by Basson in the early 1990s and had been the person to approach Basson about an ecstasy deal. Through Wentzel's testimony details began to emerge of Basson as the central figure in an international sales and procurement network which included arms deals. Deals involving Libya and Pakistan were mentioned and it was alleged that Wentzel had negotiated a deal with the Pakistani government involving the sale of AK47s, grenade launchers and ammunition for navy launches. There was even talk of deals with Iraq.

Basson's defence in response to allegations of dealing in ecstasy has been that the deal involved arms rather than drugs and that he had not been aware that a packet he had passed to Wentzel, leading to his arrest had contained ecstasy capsules.

In a surprise move in Thursday the defence team put it to Wentzel that through his company, Global Management, Basson and one of the other directors, Solly Pienaar, had travelled to Libya to collect funds for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's defence in the trial relating to the disappearance of Stompie Sepei in the 1980s. It was alleged that in returning to South African Basson and his colleague had delivered the money to the Mandela's Houghton home. The allegation was not tested.

Former head of research at the front company Delta G Scientific, Dr. Johan Koekemoer, who was responsible for the manufacture of the 912kg of MDMA (ecstasy) will take the stand today.

Centre for Conflict Resolution, UCT, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa Tel: (27) 21-4222512 Fax: (27) 21-4222622 Email: [email protected]