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Trial Report: Twenty-Two

This report covers the period 9 - 13 June, 2000

Friday, 9 June 2000

Bio-chemist and bio-technologist Dr Lucia Steenkamp, the only person who did peptide synthesis at Delta G Scientific (from 1987 to 1991) returned for completion of cross-examination. Steenkamp agreed with defence counsel, Adv. Jaap Cilliers, that the peptide synthesizer at Delta G was not a production scale model. She also agreed that current technology is well advanced and that it is both easier and more accurate to synthesize peptides - even on biological warfare scale, than it would have been a decade ago.

During a debate with Steenkamp, Cilliers claimed that literature from the United States records the possibility of constructing "bridges" which can alter the bonding properties of peptides. If, for example the manipulation of emotions is the objective, you can simply block the brain cell, rather than bonding the peptide to the brain cell. A chemical that can be used to do this is, for example, BZ. Cilliers said that work was done at the Special Forces headquarters laboratories with the intention of developing peptides that could be released into the air. The belief was that if these peptides were to be released during a riot, the participants would inhale them and they would be absorbed through the receptive nasal mucous membranes. Steenkamp said in order to achieve this goal, the air would have to be saturated with peptides, a kilogram or more being needed at a time. The judge intervened, asking Steenkamp if she believed a medical doctor could have conducted such advanced peptide work 11 or 12 years ago to which she replied, no.

Steenkamp said that in order to help the court, she had done some research on the sequence of brain peptides and how they were decided on. Her findings are that 64-million possible combinations/computations would have to be tested in order to produce a small, six-link peptide. Even a chain of three amino acids would require the synthesis and testing of 1 000 peptides before the right one was found. It had taken her 3,5 years of full-time research to achieve basic peptide synthesis. She was skeptical that any more advanced work was being done in South Africa at the time and said she would like to see the reports of that work. Unfortunately, said Cilliers, although the documentation does exist, it is recorded on the CD Roms to which only the State President can authorise access.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended, in its final report, that suitably qualified, independent scientists be granted access to the CD roms to assess their contents.

Monday, 12 June 2000

Orthopedic surgeon, Dr Kobus Bothma flew in from Canada to take the stand. He was warned against self-incrimination in charges 39-44 (the murder of three men at Dukuduku) and the broad conspiracy charge, 63. The prosecution gained a court order against publication in South Africa of any photographs of Bothma, on the grounds that he intends re-establishing himself in South Africa and fears that his wife and children could be victimised as a result of his testimony about chemical experimentation.

Bothma told the court that he joined Special Forces after qualifying as a doctor. He was recruited by Basson to join the Special Operations Unit while working at 1 Military hospital. Bothma's work initially focussed on logistics and developing first-aid courses for Special Forces medics. Like other Special Operations Unit doctors, he worked part-time in the casualty ward at 1 Military hospital and accompanied Special Forces members on military operations. Bothma said he only ever went on cross-border operations.

One of his first tasks as a member of Special Operations was to pack the medical bags of doctors who were going into the field. He said that Tuberine and Scoline were not standard issue in these kits. He also said it was highly unlikely that operator, Johan Theron would have had free access to these drugs. Theron testified earlier in the trial that he had used these drugs to murder people identified as targets by the South African Defence Force.

Bothma told the court that one day during 1983, Basson told him that "orders" had been issued for three people to be killed. Bothma was instructed to liaise with, and accompany Johan Theron on the mission. When Bothma asked Basson why he had to go with Theron, he was told the victims had to be sedated for the trip. Basson gave Bothma a bottle containing a jelly-like substance and told him to smear some of it on the victims and observe the results. Bothma was concerned about his own safety and asked Basson if the jelly was toxic or in any way dangerous. He was assured it was not, and was simply a carrier substance, to be tested for possible skin reaction.

Bothma and Theron left the next day for Dukuduku in KwaZulu/Natal in Theron's vehicle. Somewhere outside Pretoria, they were met by one or more men in a Volkswagen mini-bus. Three black men were in the mini-bus. Theron told Bothma to sedate them. Having been told by Basson to use Medazolam (of which Dormicum is a trade name) Bothma injected the substance into cans of cold drink given to him by Theron. The three victims, bound hand and foot and all in their late 20s/early 30s, drank the cold drink and fell asleep.

On arrival at the Dukuduku military base, where Bothma had done some of his Special Forces training, Theron shackled the three men to trees overnight. The next morning, Bothma and Theron went to the men, and Theron pointed out that one of them had almost sawed through the branch to which he was handcuffed in an attempt to get free. Although the three men were conscious, Bothma does not think they realised what was going on. Bothma donned a surgical glove and smeared some of the jelly onto the upper arm of one man. He had earlier also applied a small amount of the substance to his own skin, and had no reaction. He and Theron waited a while to see if the victim showed a reaction. When he did not, Theron told Bothma: "It's time for these three to say goodbye". At this point in his testimony, Bothma broke down - briefly. When he recovered his composure, Bothma said he knew Theron meant the three men had to be killed. He "couldn't take it" and told Theron he was leaving. He went for a walk on the shooting range, returning about 10 minutes later to find Theron putting the three corpses into body bags. Theron had told Bothma the day before that he planned to use Tuberine to kill the men. Bothma knew this would result in an excruciatingly painful death (by suffocation) and had given Theron an ampoule of Ketelaar to use first, so that "at least they would be asleep when he used the Tuberine ".

Bothma helped Theron load the body bags into the aircraft piloted by Matie van der Linde. When Theron asked if he wanted to go with them on the flight, Bothma agreed "because I felt extremely intimidated, and didn't want them to see how upset I was". They flew out over the ocean in the direction of St Lucia and the bodies were thrown into the sea. Bothma remembers that at some point during the day, he, Theron and he thinks Van der Linde, went to cast their votes in the tricameral referendum. They spent the night at St Lucia and the next day, he drove back to Pretoria. Soon afterwards, he encountered Basson at Speskop and told him the jelly had no effect at all on the victim. They did not discuss the matter further. Bothma said he was traumatised by the incident, and has been through "20 years of hell" since it happened. However, Bothma said he did not consider the Dukuduku jelly part of a chemical warfare experiment, since he had been assured by Basson that it was harmless - and since Basson was his "chief" at the time, and he trusted him, he knew that Basson would never do anything that would endanger Bothma's own safety.

Bothma testified that after leaving Special Forces in 1991, he was approached by Dr. Philip Mijburgh to assist in scanning thousands of pages of documents onto CD. Bothma, who has an interest in computers agreed to assist. He and Dr. Klaus Psotta scanned 10 boxes of documents and saved them onto CD. He said that the documents were shredded thereafter. Bothma claims not to have read the documents but said they looked like a data base of literature.

During cross examination Bothma denied Johan Theron's testimony that they took turns in injecting the Dukuduku victims with Tuberine and Scoline. He said he has asked himself thousands of times since the incident, why he had to accompany Theron on the operation and cannot find an answer. Possibly it was because the victims had to be sedated - or, as he says in his statement, because he had to certify death. Cilliers said both suggestions were absurd. Theron had testified that by the time of the Dukuduku operation, he had already killed "hundreds" of people by injecting them - and given that the victims were to be dumped in the sea, there could have been no point to a medical doctor being around to certify death. Nevertheless, Bothma denies administering lethal injections to anyone.

Tuesday, 13 June 2000

The cross examination of Dr. Kobus Bothma continued. Cilliers put it to Bothma that Theron had not implicated Basson in the Dukuduku incident during his testimony and that Bothma was tailoring his testimony to implicate Basson.

Cilliers also put it to the witness that the standard medical bags of doctors accompanying Special Forces operators did include hand held ventilators and the muscle relaxants Tuberine and Scoline. Bothma agreed that ventilators were included but denied that the drugs were standard issue.

It was placed on record that Basson denies ever ordering Bothma to accompany Theron to Dukuduku.

The court has adjourned until Monday, July 31, when Anton Ackerman will resume testimony on the fraud charges. The tentative dates for the court's trip to Florida to hear testimony from attorney David Webster are August 29 to September 15.

 

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]

 
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