Trial Report: Fifteen

This report covers the period Monday 6 March - Thursday 9 March 2000

Tjaard Viljoen, former business associate of Dr. Basson, gave evidence throughout the period covered by this report. Viljoen testified in detail of the businesses in which Basson is alleged to have an interest including the following:

1. Aeromed. Established in 1987 this company was not an official front for Project Coast. Viljoen testified that the company was to be used by the Coast. The company's assets included a Piper Seneca and a King Air.

2. Wisdom Erf 1219. The company under which the development of Merton House resorted.

3. Wisdom Idle Winds. The holding company of the Tygerberg Zoo. The property and zoo was purchased from Basson's uncle. The property was variously owned by other companies in the Wisdom Group after 1991.

4. Wisdom Liquor Centre. A Pretoria liquor store in which Basson had a 45% share. The business was sold in 1992/3 at a loss.

5. Contemporary Design Systems. A British based company established by Roger Buffham. Viljoen testified that he understood Basson to be CSD's financier.

6. Medchem Forschungs AG. A Swiss-based company headed by David Chu selling computer hardware and software and pharmaceuticals. Viljoen understood that David Webster also had an interest in this company. The company supplied Roodeplaat Research Laboratories with computer equipment. Viljoen told of a deal in which Medchem Forschungs in which an order for insulin was purchased for the United Nations necessity programme for Iraq. The supplier was Novo Nordisk. Medchem Forschungs apparently acted as an intermediary between Novo Nordisk and the Iraqi authorities.

7. Intramex. A company which purchased a suite at the Pretoria rugby stadium, Loftus Versfeld. Viljoen told the court that Basson and his wife, Viljoen and his wife, Merton House building contractor Niel Kirstein and his spouse, Christopher Marlow, Wynand Swanepoel, Philip Mijburgh, Sam Bosch and his wife, General Lothar Neethling and his wife and David Spamer and his wife, were regular users of the facility. The suite was sold in 1997 at a profit.

8. Waag 'n Bietjie Boerdery.

9. WPW Inc. Viljoen testified that he understood Basson to be the beneficial owner of this business. This is significant in that forensic auditor, Hennie Bruwer told the court on 28 February during cross examination that, if the court found that Basson and the WPW Group were one, there had clearly been personal gain by Basson, whereas, if the court found that Basson and the WPW Group were not one, then someone else had personally gained.

10. Profincor. The court heard that this company was financed by loans from WPW Inc.

11. Pretext Estate Agents. A company owned by Viljoen which received funds from PCM Inc at Bank Indosuez, Geneva on one occasion.

12. Regent International Trading Services. Established in January 1987 to be used to acquire protective clothing and equipment. The company would negotiate deals, buy the goods and distribute them. Viljoen understood this company to be an SADF front and paid SADF funds from Infladel into the company's account. Forensic auditor, Hennie Bruwer, testified earlier that RITS was not an SADF front.

13. Intramex. A company established in October 1987, allegedly on Basson's orders. The company was to handle the future buying and selling of protective clothing and equipment. Intramex clients included Armscor, Swartklip Products, SAMS and 7 Medical Battalion. Intramex also sublet a warehouse in Pretoria West from Technotek, where 45 000 NBC suits were delivered and stored. In the warehouse was a secure wire cage, with a lockable gate, to which Basson alone had access. Drums of what Viljoen believed were chemicals, delivered by Delta G Scientific and Organochem, were stored in the cage. A February 1989 stock list faxed by Intramex to Technotek records the presence in the warehouse of "47 drums of poisonous acid". The warehouse was closed in 1990.

Viljoen testified that Basson appointed various people to act on his behalf in the private companies, namely, Viljoen himself, Christopher Marlow, Samuel Bosch, Philip Mijburgh, Wynand Swanepoel, D John Truter, David Chu, Roger Buffham, Bernard Zimmer and David Webster.

Viljoen said the "agents" were all confidants of Basson, but there were two levels of confidentiality. It is Viljoen's impression that Philip Mijburgh and Wynand Swanepoel were fully informed of all business activities.

On Thursday 10 March, Viljoen told the court of the lifestyle he had enjoyed as a business associate of Basson. This included, on one occasion hiring a Lear jet to fly Basson and his wife, Lothar Neethling and his brother and Viljoen to Cape Town for a Northern Transvaal-Western Province rugby match. On another trip to Cape Town, in the King Air, Basson and his wife, and Viljoen and his wife paid a fleeting visit to the Tygerberg Zoo before flying on to Fancourt for an overnight stay. Viljoen also referred to trips he made abroad saying that on most occasions he travelled first class.

Cross examination of Viljoen was scheduled to begin on Friday 12 March.

This report has been prepared by Chandr� Gould and Marlene Burger. Chandr� Gould is a research associate at the Centre for Conflict Resolution working on the Chemical and Biological Warfare Research Project. Marlene Burger is monitoring the trial as part of the CCR Chemical and Biological Warfare Research Project. The Chemical and Biological Warfare Research Project is funded by the Ford Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Norwegian Government.

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