Trial Report: Thirty-Four

This report covers the period Monday November 6 to Friday November 10, 2000

Monday November 6, 2000

The first witness was Lieutenant-General Dirk Verbeek, chief director counter-intelligence from January 1988 to the beginning of 1993. In this capacity, he was in charge of SADF and Armscor security, personnel clearance, and anti-espionage measures. He said that from 1987 he was aware that Project Coast was designed to develop and offensive and defensive CBW capacity for the SADF. He said Coast was one of the top 10 most sensitive/clandestine SADF projects at the time, along with the nuclear bomb project, but that it was not the most sensitive or highly classified. Security was, however, of prime concern in regard to Coast, due to the danger of exposure through espionage. Verbeek testified about the functions a security officer would have performed in a project such as Coast.

Verbeek said the Coast security officer should have known: the names of role players in the project, including directors of foreign companies through which project funds were channeled, details of all foreign bank accounts used for Coast funds, the signatories to such accounts, details of all and any safe houses used by project employees, all companies linked to the project, about contact between the project officer and anyone else involved. As counter-intelligence chief, Verbeek himself had no knowledge of any contact between Coast/Basson and Libya, anyone in the SADF and Libya, contact between Basson and Libyan intelligence or security forces up to 1992. Verbeek testified that from 1994, it became "common knowledge" that such contact had taken place. He has no knowledge of any equipment or chemical substances being provided to Coast from Libyan sources, or of Libyan intelligence agent Yusuf Murgam. Verbeek also said he had no knowledge of the properties allegedly owned Basson abroad.

Verbeek said that in 1991/2 a counter-intelligence investigation was launched into Project Coast after apparent irregularities were identified. Verbeek said that he could not determine how the numerous companies which turned up, fitted into the project. The probe produced a list of 137 companies based on unconfirmed/unsubstantiated information. Since Military Intelligence did not have the forensic and financial expertise or staff needed to probe the financial affairs of the project, Verbeek personally tasked the office of the Auditor-General (Wally van Heerden) and the Office for Serious Economic Offences (Jan Swanepoel) simultaneously to launch investigations. He said the counter-intelligence probe had been incomplete. Verbeek said he had no knowledge of the WPW group of companies nor of the alleged foreign donation of some 32 000 NBC suits to Unita, and has no knowledge of such donated suits being distributed by Military Intelligence.

During cross examination Adv. Cilliers put it to the witness that he appeared to have very little knowledge of Project Coast but asked him to agree that Project Coast was highly successful and said that for more than a decade, right under the nose of major foreign governments, a CBW programme was established for the SADF which "amazed" the American and British authorities when they finally learned of the project's achievements, yet at no stage was the project compromised or exposed and no equipment was ever seized or confiscated. Verbeek said in response that if the CIA or MI6 had knowledge of the project, Military Intelligence would not necessarily have been informed, or even have realised that security had been breached.

Dr Torie Pretorius then called Sybie van der Spuy, managing director of EMLC for 12 years from November 1, 1980. Van der Spuy said no chemical work was ever carried out by the company. He said that when he first joined EMLC he found a room containing a large amount of bulk chemicals and a carton of what appeared to be clothing. As he moved across the room to examine the clothing, one of his new employees warned him not to touch it. Asked why not, the employee told Van der Spuy: "Because those clothes are poisoned and if you put those underpants on, you'll be dead by tonight".Van der Spuy offered no further explanation, but says he immediately ordered the contents of this room to be destroyed, and was later informed that this had been done.

Van der Spuy said he knows Bill Grieve, who joined EMLC during the period when a number of former Rhodesians joined the South African security forces. He said Grieve was a "reasonably good" explosives expert.

Van der Spuy testified that when EMLC was shut down, he had a phone call from Basson almost immediately who offered him a job as technical director at Delta G Scientific. This saw Van der Spuy in charge of plant maintenance, and he had nothing to do with the laboratory equipment.

In cross-examination, Cilliers put it to Van der Spuy that prior to him joining EMLC in November 1980, the company obviously was involved in the manufacture/supply of toxins, and, as illustrated by his encounter with the underpants, clearly had the ability to apply toxins to items of clothing. Van der Spuy says this may or may not have been the case, but he put an end to the practice immediately, in terms of his agreement with Loots that no chemical work would be done.

The next witness was Dr Jan Coetzee, founder and first managing director of EMLC. He came to the post via the Chemical Defence Unit of the CSIR, where he was head of the Department of Special Equipment - tasked to develop special counter-intelligence equipment for the Special Operations Group of the SADF (forerunner of Special Forces). Coetzee was recruited by Gen. Magnus Malan, SADF Chief at the time, for the Defence Research Institute. His orders from Malan and Gen. Fritz Loots were to concentrate on the operational needs of the Special Operations Group. At the time, Coetzee worked out of Armscor premises and was funded from the Armscor budget. Coetzee said that at no time under Coetzee was EMLC engaged in chemical synthesis or extraction. His staff included lowly qualified chemists, but none capable of advanced chemical work. Mostly, he used national servicemen who had a mechanical bent.

Coetzee testified that during August 1980, Johan Theron came to see him and told Coetzee he wished he could find a way out. Asked why, Theron said he was under enormous stress. Coetzee questioned him about the cause of this stress, and says Theron told him he was involved in certain operations which required people to be injected before being thrown into the sea from aircraft.

Note: Theron testified in May that he was involved in operations in which Swapo members were given muscle relaxants in overdose and thrown from an aircraft.

In cross-examination, Coetzee said he was never involved in the killing of anyone by means of chemical substances. Coetzee did not know about the poisoned clothing found by Van der Spuy.

Coetzee said he was aware of experiments carried out with organophosphates on clothing in Rhodesia.In re-examination, Pretorius asked Coetzee to expand on his knowledge of organophosphates used in Rhodesia. He said he was approached on one occasion (prior to his departure from EMLC at the end of August, 1980) by a courier for Rhodesian Special Forces, who gave him a typed report, in point form, of toxic substances, including organophosphates, applied to various parts of the body, and outlining the exact results/effects. He turned the document over to the Surgeon General at the time, Gen Nico Nieuwoudt.

Tuesday November 7, 2000

Senior prosecutor Anton Ackerman called former Military Intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Witkop Badenhorst, who joined the SADF in 1962 and retired in November 1991. From 1989 - 1991 Badenhorst was Chief of Staff Intelligence in the SADF. Before that he as Chief of Staff Operations. As Chief of Staff Operations, Badenhorst co-ordinated all SADF military operations, both inside South Africa and in then South West Africa. He first became aware of the existence of Project Coast while Chief of Staff Army Logistics (1982-1987) as the result of New Generation Teargas (CR) grenades being used operationally. From 1986, Badenhorst was aware that Coast's objective was establishment of a chemical and biological warfare programme, and he knew that it was a SAMS project, with Basson the project officer.

As Chief of Staff Intelligence he inherited the Project Coast budget since Military Intelligence was responsible for the execution of certain financial aspects of the project. However, one of the first things Badenhorst did in his new position was have the Coast budget transferred from Military Intelligence to the control of Chief of Staff Finance because he was unhappy with the lack of checks and balances for expenditure on classified projects handled by Military Intelligence.

When Badenhorst arrived at Military Intelligence it was common practice for a projects entire budget for the year to be paid to the project officer, and spent at his discretion. In the case of Coast, millions of rands from the secret defence account were transferred to foreign bank accounts by a junior officer on the strength of surgeon-general's signature, or that of Basson. Instructions for transfers contained no more information than an order to transfer a specific amount to a designated foreign bank account. There was no motivation for the expenditure and no way Military Intelligence could control what happened to the funds after transfer, and this was not acceptable to Badenhorst from an auditing point of view. He introduced a system which required project officers to motivate all expenditure in detail, for his authorisation. At the same time, the three members of the Auditor-General's staff allocated to Military Intelligence on a permanent basis were given total access to all secret defence account expenditure to enable them to conduct full audits on all classified projects run by Military Intelligence. However, Coast was a SAMS project, and Badenhorst was unable to enforce the same system, so instead, requested that control be transferred to Chief of Staff Finance. He was not prepared to accept responsibility for expenditure when he had no way of knowing what happened to the money once it was sent abroad by the Reserve Bank.

Badenhorst told the court that he was unaware of the management structures of Project Coast and never attended a Co-ordinating Management Committee meeting, despite the fact that the Chief of Staff Intelligence should have been a permanent members of this committee.

Badenhorst said he had no knowledge of the aircraft used by Project Coast nor of the protective clothing for SADF troops. He also said he knows nothing about the issue of NBC suits to Unita, despite the fact that the logistical support programme for Unita fell under his direct control as Chief of Staff Intelligence. He said that from 1976, when Angola was invaded, the SADF poured equipment into Unita's stronghold. Arms, ammunition, clothing, uniforms, boots and shoes, food and medicine were supplied by the ton until the adoption of UN Resolution 435. After this, South African aid to Unita was officially scaled down to humanitarian items only - clothes, food, medicines - but, says Badenhorst, clandestine supply of fuel, arms and ammunition continued unabated.

In cross-examination, Badenhorst said he had never heard of the Co-ordinating Management Committee, and as far as he was concerned, management of Coast was handled by the Reduced Defence Command Council. While he was Chief of Staff Intelligence, the SADF was headed first by Jannie Geldenhuys and then by Kat Liebenberg. Badenhorst agreed with Adv. Cilliers that Liebenberg had his own way of doing things, and seldom paid more than lip service to accepted SADF procedures. Cilliers put it to Badenhorst that according to Knobel, the CMC did not want to know any details of Coast's business, Basson could thus not be held responsible for simply carrying out his orders. Badenhorst said he had a serious problem with that approach, as particularly with so sensitive a project, any exposure or security breach could have had international repercussions - but if Basson's orders were to divulge no details of his actions to the project management, he could not fault Basson for carrying out such orders.

Wednesday November 8, 2000

The first witness was Gerald Cadwell. Cadwell, despite not having qualified as a chemist has worked as a chemist since 1966 and was recruited to Delta G Scientific in 1983. Cadwell's first task was the up-scaling of the manufacture of new generation tear gas, CR. All equipment needed for the up-scaling project had been obtained from "normal" suppliers in South Africa, said Cadwell.

Cadwell testified that he was instructed by Basson to dissolve CR in methanol and a "couple of hundred" litres was prepared for testing. Prior to moving the operation to Delta G Scientific's Midrand plant in August 1985, Cadwell estimates that about 50kg of CR was produced. In total, says Cadwell, 24 tons of CR were manufactured from mid-85 to late 1986/early 1987. A 250-litre reactor and a 1 000-litre reactor were used.

Shortly after the CR project was shut down, while Cadwell was technical production manager and Corrie Botha was production manager, 1 200kg of methaqualone was made. Cadwell and Botha were also involved in the extraction of oil from about a ton and a half of cannabis at DGS. Again, Cadwell has no idea what the purpose of the process was. No questions were put to Cadwell in cross examination.

The next witness was Barry Pithey, a qualified chemist who was recruited by Willie Basson in April 1982 to create a business front for Delta G Scientific, through which pharmaceutical-related and some agricultural products could enter the "extremely competitive" commercial market. Pithey said the chief product made by Delta G Scientific was CR, but CS was also manufactured. In 1988, Pithey became involved in the production of methaqualone.

Pithey said he was aware of an Ecstasy project at Delta G Scientific under the code name Baxil. The project represented business worth "several hundred thousand rand" for DGS. The product was delivered to the premises of Medchem Pharmaceuticals, a company owned by Mijburgh. Pithey was never told why Ecstasy was being made.

In cross-examination, Pithey named Jerry Brand as a chemical supplier who was able to "get hold of anything that was needed, even by Delta G Scientific".

Pithey's testimony was followed by the filing of affidavits:

WILLEM NEL, a financial executive with Sentrachem and qualified auditor since 1986, states that the company bought Delta G Scientific in August 1993. In late 1994 and January 1995, he visited the site to conduct routine stock-taking and compile an inventory. During this exercise, a number of drums were discovered, containing unidentified chemicals. Nel was told (he does not say by whom) that the drums and their contents were the property of General Lothar Neethling, former head of the SAP Forensic Laboratory. Based on this information, Nel informed the police, who came to fetch the drums.

E MORRIS of the SAPS Forensic Laboratory, states that he was telephoned some time in 1995 by Willie Nel of Sentrachem and told that a number of drums believed to contain the precursor for methaqualone had been discovered. Morris informed Nel that the Organised Crime Unit was aware of the drums and had already launched an investigation into their presence at Delta G Scientific. The drums had been taken into custody and analysis of the contents confirmed that they contained the precursor for methaqualone.

HENDRIK WESTRA, SAPS superintendent, states that on November 16, 1995 he fetched the drums from DGS in Midrand and placed them in police custody.

JOHANNES CARSTENS of the SAPS confirms that he was present when the drums were picked up at DGS.

FRANCOIS DE BEER of the SAPS states that he locked the drums in a vault at the SAPS Forensic Laboratory on receipt.

Forensic analyst ETIENNE VAN ZYL states that on March 7, 1997, he was asked to test the chemicals in the vault. A week later, he went to the Silverton Forensic Laboratory and tested the contents of a number of blue plastic drums. They were found to contain 840kg of methaqualone precursor, from which, he estimates, 820kg of pure methaqualone could be manufactured. Drums containing 80 litres of Quinezoline were also found, from which an estimated 130kg of methaqualone could be made. Van Zyl estimates that 3,5-m Mandrax tablets could have been made from these two substances. Some of the drums were found to contain talcum powder, used as a filler in the pharmaceutical industry, magnesium stirate, used in the making of tablets, and cellulose, used to set up a chain reaction during the manufacture of methaqualone.

Cilliers confirmed that these statements were being accepted without dispute, except in respect of hearsay, such as that the drugs belonged to Lothar Neethling.

Admissions were then also filed regarding the disappearance of three of the Renamo members identified as assassins of Renamo secretary-general Orlando Cristina on April 17, 1983. These statements have been made by family members of the three men and record that Boaventura Bomba was a Renamo member who had been living on the SADF farm Fontana, north of Pretoria, since 1982. After the death of Cristina, he was taken away from the farm by the police on May 2, 1983, and his family was told he was later taken to Gorongoza in Mozambique, where the Renamo headquarters were. He was never seen by any member of his family again.

FELIX NDAMENE, aka Bob Dixon, a former member of 5 Reconnaisance regiment, Phalaborwa, states that Corporal Mack Anderson, formerly of Beira, was incarcerated in the detention barracks at 5 Recce headquarters during 1987. At the time, Chris Pretorius was in charge of the barracks. On December 11, 1987, Anderson was removed from the barracks by Pretorius and taken to the shooting range, where he was injected before he/his body was thrown out of a helicopter across the border in Mozambique. According to the official SA Defence Force records, Anderson has been listed as absent without leave from December 12, 1987.

The next witness was Dr Klaus Psotta, now self-employed and a doctor in organic chemistry, who was warned against self-incrimination on Charge 63 (broad conspiracy). Employed at the CSIR until 1982, Psotta was recruited to Delta G Scientific in June of that year, and was under no illusion about the nature of the company's work in the CBW field. He worked in the synthesis department until he was transferred to Roodeplaat Research Laboratories in February 1984, where he continued to synthesise chemical compounds. He said he knows Basson and saw him a lot at the two front companies. On Basson's direct orders, Psotta was tasked to synthesise 500g of methaqualone after he moved to RRL. However, when Psotta learned through rumour that Delta G Scientific had been ordered by Basson to produce 500kg of methaqualone, he stopped the work he was doing, as he considered Basson to be wasting his time with such a small quantity while Delta G was already producing methaqualone by the kilogram.

Other work done by Psotta was the synthesis of Paraoxon, Tabun, Monensin and VX, although the latter was a complicated and difficult process and he progressed only as far as the first two or three steps.

Psotta was a member of the data-capture team headed by Kobus Bothma which worked out of offices at the Medchem Consolidated Industries premises in Centurion, under the aegis of Data Image Information Systems. The third member of the team was a Susan Swanepoel and Mijburgh was the project chief. Their task was to capture documents from Delta G Scientific on the chemical and biological warfare programme. As best as Psotta can recall, documents scanned consisted chiefly of published literature which was fairly openly available. There were a few documents of a more technical nature which "might" have been obtained by Basson on his many travels. All documents were shredded by Bothma after scanning onto optical disks.

Psotta testified that he had synthesised paraoxon whilst at RRL. He also tested the stability of the organophosphate in nicotine and alcohol. The results of his experiments on Paraoxon mixed with alcohol, specifically whisky and gin, were given to Dr James Davies and Dr Schreuder. Asked if, while engaged in this work, he ever envisaged the use of Paraoxon against enemies of the State, Psotta said given the political climate at the time, it would have been almost impossible to envisage any other purpose for Paraoxon mixed with whisky, gin, and in cigarettes. In principle, he had no qualms about their use against "the enemy". In cross examination, Adv. Cilliers stated that the purpose of the experiments was to devise protection for VIPs.

The day ended with further admissions by the defence.

They do not dispute that Victor de Fonseca, a member of 5 Recce Regiment, had brain cancer and died on April 19, 1986 of pneumonia, according to his official death certificate. Nor is there a dispute over the exhumation of De Fonseca's remains in 1998, or the ensuing post-mortem which failed to establish his cause of death. The defence also does not dispute the pathologist's findings that the level of Thallium in De Fonseca's remains was too low to be blamed for his death. Other statements entered into the record include one from Vusi Dlamini, daughter of ANC activist Enoch Dlamini which states that the official cause of her father's death in Swaziland in 1989 was acute haemmorhagic pancreatitis. On his deathbed, her father told her he had consumed beer at a braai about two weeks earlier.

The court adjourned until Monday 13 November.

This report has been prepared by Chandré Gould and Marlene Burger. Chandré  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.