Trial Report: Fifty-Five

This report covers the period Monday 10 September - Friday 21 September 2001

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Monday 10 September

Basson told the court that part of Delta G Scientific's cover story was the fabrication of documents to indicate that substances were bought from Eastern Bloc countries, and China, purified by Delta G and then resold internationally. He said that these countries had huge networks for moving chemical products, but the quality was poor. He said that some agricultural chemicals were bought on this market, cheaply, purified and resold. He claimed that neither the WPW Group nor the Principals were involved in any such deals. Raw chemicals were bought with Delta G funds and the proceeds of the refined products went back to the company, or to Medchem Pharmaceuticals. Some of these products, said Basson, were registered with the Medicines Control Council.

He said that the mortar shells imported from Israel for weaponisation of CR were filled at Swartklip Products and that steel for the canisters was imported from Brazil. Basson said that no pyrotechnical tests had to be carried out, as the existing CS specifications were merely adapted slightly, and only the finished 81mm mortars were tested at Swartklip. Basson has no memory of the import deals, which took place in 1987/88, but believes a few hundred, perhaps 1 000, mortars were weaponised with CR. He said the only mortars used were those used at Tumpu in the final stages of the Angolan war.

He also claimed that all the equipment and apparatus in the tissue culture laboratory at Speskop was bought as part of the peptide synthesiser package deal. The equipment included incubators, microtomes, homogenisers and flasks. [Ed Note: this is the first time that Basson has claimed that this equipment formed part of the deal].

With regard to the weapons deal which Basson claimed he was discussing with Grant Wentzel at the time Basson's arrest on charges of the possession of Ecstasy in 1997, Basson said that in 1995 he began advising Grant Wentzel on a wide range of weapons, from artillery pieces to handguns and ammunition. He said that by 1996 the deal had been downscaled, and only infantry platoon weapons were involved. Later still, the deal changed again, and Wentzel was negotiating the sale only of 40mm grenade launchers and ammunition. All along, said Basson, Wentzel’s story was that the buyer was Pakistan, but as time passed, Basson realised that this was merely to be the export route, and he thought the probably buyer was Libya – but it might just as easily have been Iraq or the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. The least likely candidate was Iran.

Initially, Wentzel was to sell only enough weapons for evaluation purposes, and Basson advised him that between 3 000 and 5 000 would suffice. Wentzel was to obtain the weapons from Austria, then he had a Spanish contact, although Basson recommended he deal only with Swartklip Products, but in the end, Wentzel told Basson he had negotiated a better price with South American suppliers. This was conveyed to Basson only on the Monday before his arrest on January 29, 1997, and Basson immediately warned Wentzel that by dealing with South Americans, "the Jews" would immediately be informed.

Prosecutor, Dr Torie Pretorius put it to Basson that this scenario was highly unlikely, invented by Basson solely as a way to explain some of the words he used during the taped conversation with Wentzel during the police operation. Basson explained in detail his version of the events on the day of his arrest. He repeated the claim made by his defence counsel earlier in the trial that Wentzel had given him a box of wine and he later discovered a black plastic bag placed in the box which was later found to contain the MDMA capsules. He said that he met with Wentzel in order to return the bag. He said placing the bag in the wine box must have been an error on Wentzel's part.

Basson could offer no explanation to references on the tape by Wentzel to "the last two worried me", "they first complained about the price, so I called off the deal, then they phoned and said they’d take 2 000 because they have an order for Cape Town". Basson said that when he heard Cape Town, he assumed Wentzel meant he was going to buy the grenades from Swartklip Products after all, but he cannot explain the reference to goods being intended for Cape Town – unless, he added, Pagad [People Against Gangsertism and Drugs, a Cape Town based oragnisation] was involved in the deal. In that case, he said, Wentzel would have had even more reason to fear for his life, as the Israelis would not have been happy to learn that he was selling arms to Muslims, it could have led to real trouble with Mossad. Referring to the murder of Alan Kidger, Basson said, after all, the last person who "cheated the Jews" ended up cut into little pieces in the boot of his car when a red mercury deal went wrong.

Basson claimed that in December 1996 Michael Kennedy of the National Intelligence Agency offered both he and his wife the chance to start a new life in America, under the protection of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. He said that in terms of a deal made between NIA and the CIA, they would both be given new identities. He said he could not have accepted his offer since his wife would not have been prepared to leave the country.

Basson was questioned about the documents which were recovered in trunks stored at the home of one of his associates after his arrest. He admitted that some of the documents were his, but said that he had no knowledge of the trunks. Basson is charged with the unauthorised possession of Top Secret military documents.

Tuesday 11 September

Pretorius concluded cross-examination on his section of the case by dealing with the documents – totalling some 4 500 pages – retrieved from the four blue steel trunks left in Sam Bosch’s care. Basson said he and Philip Mijburgh fetched Roodeplaat Research Laboratories (RRL) documents and files from Dr Andre Immelman at a smallholding at Kameeldrift, outside Pretoria, where he was living at the time. By that time, he said, much of the RRL and Project Coast data had already been captured on Sefmed’s central computer data base as part of an ongoing project launched in 1989. Basson acknowledged that it was standard operating procedure for all documents relating to the project to be destroyed once captured on computer or CD-ROM.

Regardless of where the documents were before being packed into the trunks, Basson said that at no point had he realised that between 1995 and his arrest in 1997, a significant volume of documents, both personal and professional, were missing. He assumed that the personal items were in storage, and as far as he was concerned, everything relating to Coast had been shredded. He could offer no explanation as to why anyone would have packed the documents in the trunks and stored them with Bosch.

After posing more questions about the specific nature of the documents in the four trunks, Pretorius summed up his case. He said that the entire defence and progression of the trial had been planned with military precision, with Basson making up imaginative explanations for every accusation as the case against him unfolded. Pretorius said Basson had deliberately misled the court on numerous points, down to moving the date of his appointment at Speskop, and launching a concerted attack on witness Johan Theron in order to belittle and demean him. Pretorius said this was a strategy also used against every person who incriminated Basson in any criminal activity. Yet Basson could offer no credible or logical reason why so many people, from so many different levels and branches of the South African Defence Force, would falsely implicate him in specific murders and the conspiracy to eliminate enemies of the state. Taking all the evidence into account, Pretorius said, there could be no doubt that Basson was guilty as charged.

Anton Ackermann then resumed cross-examination on the fraud charges. Regarding the alleged purchase of methaqualone and BZ from Croatia, Basson said that the deal, organised through Jurg Jacomet, had nothing to do with the Principals, but was included in the alleged Swiss intelligence service deal put together by General Peter Regli. Ackermann put it to Basson that there never was a Regli deal, and that the $2,3-m transferred to the Zagreb bank account of Jacomet, allegedly to pay the Croatian suppliers of methaqualone, was actually sent abroad to be utilised by Bernard Zimmer on behalf of the WPW group. Ackermann said that when the bulk of these funds were stolen by Jacomet, it was impossible for the money to be routed to Blowing Rock Consolidated Investments, which nevertheless borrowed R4,5-m from Medchem Consolidated Investments in January 1993. But, said Ackermann, MCI did not have the funds to lend BRCI at the time, and had to first make a loan from RRL.

Basson claimed that the $2,46-m transferred from Project Coast to the Blackdale account in April 1992 was used to pay for four tons of BZ. He said that no realistic price could ever be determined for the substances bought for Project Coast, and project auditor Petro Theron had to be led by information provided to the Co-ordinating Management Committee by Basson.

Basson said that various channels were used to procure chemicals, Organochem imported large quantities of raw materials for Delta G from companies in Hong Kong, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Although the drug destruction certificate reference to Product B had been identified by Basson as a ton of the BZ variant, Ackermann produced several other documents which mention both Product B and Product A. But these, said Basson, were merely code words used to identify heliotropine and ACPA (a methaqualone component) respectively, and bear no relation to the Product B which was dumped in the sea. He claimed Jerry Brandt bought more than 1 000 litres of ACPA from Germany and handed it to Johan Koekemoer, who made MDMA from it.

Wednesday 12 September

The focus of cross-examination continued to be on, what Basson claimed, was a joint deal between the head of the Swiss intelligence service, General Peter Regli, and Croatians. In terms of the deal, Basson said he would purchase 500kg of methaqualone and Regli, through Jurg Jacomet, would acquire a clandestine consignment of "nuclear material".

Basson claimed that after he was detained and questioned in December 1993 by Swiss authorities about this deal, and subsequently ordered by the South African Defence Force to sort out the mess and recover the missing money, he enlisted Regli’s help, and that the Swiss Military Intelligence chief’s visit to South Africa was specifically to explain the situation to Gen Knobel.

State prosecutor Anton Ackermann put it to Basson that despite his elaborate explanations, there was only one amount in the order of $2,46-m transferred abroad by Project Coast from 1991 to 1993, and that the funds allegedly used to buy four tons of BZ in April 1992 and the Croatian methaqualone in October/November of that year, were one and the same. Ackermann elicited an acknowledgement from Basson that he never provided auditor, Petro Theron, with any documents showing that the project funds had been encumbered by the creation of the divisible bond which lies at the heart of the Croatian deal.

Basson said the reason written initial answers by Gen Knobel to the Office for Serious Economic Offences questions about the Croatian deal make no mention of Regli, or a joint covert deal, is that the Co-ordinating Management Committee decided only in March 1994 to disclose these details. He said it was only in May, after Regli’s visit to South Africa, that Knobel was authorised by the CMC to link the Swiss intelligence chief to the deal, although the CMC had known of his involvement since the beginning of 1993.

Basson said no supporting documents were ever furnished to back up these claims because they had all been seized in the interim by the Swiss authorities and he could not gain access to them. Ackermann put it to Basson that in fact, Knobel was never informed that a divisible bond had been created as part of the joint deal in a bank account under Regli’s control, and that Knobel had testified that the first he heard of this was when it was put to him during cross-examination by defence counsel Jaap Cilliers.

Basson said he became aware that the Swiss intelligence service was trying to acquire what he assumed were nuclear materials, while he was visiting the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, with Jacomet, in February 1991. He said that while he (Basson) was negotiating with the Russians to buy methaqualone, Jacomet was trying to buy enriched uranium. Basson did not know if this was an officially sanctioned Swiss intelligence deal, and only realised some time in 1992 that Regli was involved.

Basson said negotiations with the Croatians, to whom the Russians referred both Basson and Jacomet, took "months". It was due to the presence of the Croatian Minister of Energy Affairs at some of these talks that Basson concluded nuclear material was involved. Clearly, said Ackermann, the Swiss part of the deal was ultra-sensitive. Why, he asked would Regli have any interest in linking it to Basson’s drugs deal? Basson could not provide an answer.

Basson said that Jacomet, had previously been a member of the Swiss Air Force, who sustained an eye injury and then moved to Military Intelligence, using business deals as his cover story. As far as Basson was concerned, Jacomet was a bona fide intelligence agent and he knew that because Jacomet arranged that Basson and Lothar Neethling travel in a Swiss army helicopter to "the Swiss chemical and biological warfare laboratory", AC Laboratorium Spiez. Basson said Jacomet was also able to arrange that whenever Basson, Knobel or Neethling visited Switzerland, their entry was not recorded by customs and passport control. Basson said it was Jacomet, too, who originally arranged for Basson and Neethling to meet Regli, and following this initial meeting, "everything" Project Coast needed in Switzerland was facilitated by Regli.

Ackermann put it to Basson that Jacomet was not a Swiss agent, but a financial wheeler and dealer, and at most, an intelligence informant. In that case, said Basson, Jacomet was the "best wheeler and dealer" in the world. The only private company he knows of with which Jacomet was associated, was Intermagnum. Basson said he does not believe the company Hierholzer & Partners, on whose letterhead Jacomet faxed him a quotation for 600kg of Quinezoolione @ $5 000 per kilo on November 5, 1992, actually existed. The document was used by Basson to motivate the transfer of funds from Coast for the divisible bond, but he now says it was merely part of his cover story, like the bulk of documents created by Roger Buffham. But, Basson also said, it was this document which he used after his detention in December 1993 to exert pressure on Regli to "set the record straight" with Knobel.

Regarding the forged Banco di Napoli bonds, Basson said all he wanted from that deal was the $1,5-m being held to ransom by the Croatian authorities. Basson said Jacomet and Henrik Thomsen, who has previously been described by Basson as having been a Danish secret agent, had intercepted the bonds. Basson said Thompsen gave him Banco di Napoli bonds with a face value of $5-m as a goodwill gesture, after telling him he was in possession of bonds valued at $100-m, and advised Basson that he should use the documents to blackmail the corrupt Croatian officials to release the frozen funds. Basson said he had known Thompsen, who had family living in the Ukraine, since the end of 1992. Basson said that Thomson had a naval background and worked for Jacomet, and was present, along with an unnamed Swiss Military Intelligence major, during negotiations between Basson, Jacomet and the Croatians.

Thursday 13 September

A document drawn up by Basson in which he stated that R6,6-m of Project Coast’s budget was brought forward from the 1993/94 financial year in order to purchase chemicals needed for the accelerated incapacitant programme, came under review again. Basson said that the document was compiled in mid-1993, on his return to South Africa after first being held and questioned by Swiss authorities about the forged Banco di Napoli bearer bonds. He said the funds must have been moved from the 1992/93 financial year, as the orders were to purchase all chemicals needed by the end of 1992, so that weaponisation could be concluded during 1993. This was in terms of a decision taken by the Co-ordinating Management Committee at a meeting in October 1992.

Basson said that when he was interrogated by the Swiss police he had stuck to his prearranged cover story as far as possible, but there would have been no point to denying his identity, as it was obvious from the start that the interrogating magistrate knew that he was a brigadier in the South African Defence Force. Basson said he did not reveal his connections with Project Coast, but pretended that he was investigating arms trade between South Africa and Croatia on behalf of the South Africa "secret service". He said he needed to protect the origin of the Banco di Napoli bonds, so transposed the circumstances surrounding the Trans American Securities bonds, claiming he had paid �5 000 for the bonds. Basson said this story was concocted in collaboration with "Regli’s people."

Friday 14 September

Basson disclaimed all knowledge of a plan, outlined in a letter from Jane to David Webster on September 17, 1992, to transfer certain assets held by the WPW group to LUFT. The assets included the two apartments in Brussels, the cottage at Warfield, England, and the condominium in Orlando and were to be transferred "on Basson’s instructions", according to Jane Webster’s letter. Although Basson has no memory of this asset transfer at all, he claimed that all the documents pertaining to these moves would, in any event, have formed part of the cover story for "an operation" of which he has no recall.

Prosecutor Anton Ackermann put it to Basson that the $2,3-m sent to the Zagreb bank account of Jurg Jacomet by Project Coast was never going to be used to buy methaqualone from Croatia, but was, in fact, either to finance the ailing General Golf Investments (owners of the Five Nations Golf & Country Club) or would have been roundtripped as a loan to Careen. Neither scheme materialised, says Ackermann, because Jacomet stole half of the funds. Ackermann said Basson’s claim that during 1992, Project Coast was involved in two deals in the order of $2,3-m, was a fabrication. He said Basson's claim that the first amount (which cannot be traced in any of the bank records) was used to purchase four tons of BZ, had been made for the first time in court, despite the many questions and investigations involving the funds stolen by Jacomet. He said the BZ deal had been made up by Basson only after he had seen forensic auditor Hennie Bruwer’s report on the flow of funds, and realised that he had to create a defence. Basson denied these accusations.

Basson said he told no one, including Webster, that he was placed on compulsory pension by the South African Defence Force from March 31, 1993. However, he said he did tell Webster, Zimmer and the Principals that he was "tired" of setting up and administering the vast front organisation, and that he would be extricating himself from the situation during the course of the year. This, he said, naturally entailed the shutting down of existing front organisations and companies. He was involved in this operation until his reappointment to 1 Military Hospital in October 1995. Even after that date, he said he had contact with the Principals once or twice. It would not have been possible for the Principals themselves to assume administration of the front companies, said Basson, as by doing so, they would have blown their cover.

Court adjourned until Tuesday, September 18, to allow defence advocate Jaap Cilliers to attend to an appeal in a non-related case on Monday.

Tuesday 18 September

Ackermann returned to the question of the laboratory at the Special Forces headquarters, Speskop. Basson said the laboratory staff included a man whose surname was Cadwell, an Englishman whom he said was recruited by the MAIS Corporation in Switzerland, but whose first name he cannot remember, a Bulgarian, whose surname is Jorgev, Hekkies van Heerden, Basson himself and two or three "youngsters" from the Army Ammunition Corps. Basson has no idea what happened to Cadwell, with whom he has had no contact for several years, but said he probably returned to the UK.

Anton Ackermann put it to Basson that no such laboratories existed at Speskop, and asked if Basson could produce or identify a single document, report or briefing to support his claims. Basson said he could not since any documents that might have existed, would have been destroyed after being captured on CD-ROM. He said that the Co-ordinating Management Committee was at all times aware that the pyrotechnical ability of three new incapacitants was being tested at Speskop.

But, said Ackermann, by Basson’s account, the work done at Speskop was groundbreaking science and he must surely have briefed many select groups on it. Yet not a single document even mentions the existence of such a facility, and expenditure for the laboratories is not reflected in a single Project Coast budget breakdown. That, said Basson, is because the salaries of Cadwell and Jorgev were included in the initial peptide synthesiser package deal, and Infladel covered the running costs of the laboratories which ran to a maximum of R100 000 a year.

None of the documents compiled by Basson’s successor, Col Ben Steyn, make mention of the Speskop laboratory, or of peptide synthesis, or weaponisation of incapacitants other than CR, which was done by Swartklip. Basson explained that Steyn did not have to be briefed on the historical aspects of Coast. He said that from 1984/85 already, Dr Hennie Bester and Dr Kobus Bothma had been involved in the CR weaponisation, along with Mijburgh, and claimed they had taught Swartklip Products how to carry out the task, after Basson and Lothar Neethling had laid the foundation by devising the correct formula. He said the pre-weaponisation tests could only be done at Speskop, although synthesis of molecules was done at Delta G, not at Speskop.

Basson said methaqualone had been rejected as an incapacitant in 1988, but further research produced an analogue, which was weaponised during 1988/89. He said the first methaqualone mortars were weaponised at Speskop in 1988 by Van Heerden, Bill Grieves and the Ammunition Corps staff.

According to documents, the only substance approved by the Defence Command Council for weaponisation by October 1990 was CR but, Basson said, the CMC periodically approved the weaponisation research on other incapacitants, and the Speskop laboratory took this work to the pre-production stage.

Basson now claims that in addition to Swartklip Products, other Armscor subsidiaries were also involved in weaponisation including Somchem, Kentron and one other, the name of which he could not recall, built weapons delivery systems, he said. He said that it was he and Neethling who devised the correct formulas for weaponisation. He said thousands of pyrotechnical tests were carried out in the Speskop laboratory, and hundreds were conducted in the field in front of the buildings between 1988 and 1992.

Questioning then turned to the Chemical Agent Monitors. Ackermann asked Basson whether there had been any verified chemical attack in Angola during the SADF's involvement in the war in that country. Basson confirmed that he had been involved in two incidents, in 1986 and 1988, in which he had treated patients who had showed symptoms of no known medical condition. This, he said, resulted in the deduction that they had been the victim of chemical attack of unspecified nature, but most likely a nerve gas. The problem, said Basson, was that by the time the patients reached a treatment centre, it was seven or eight days after the attack, and blood tests were of no use, but all of them described having fallen ill after being exposed to "funny smoke".

Ackermann put it to Basson that in truth, there had not been a single verified chemical attack in Angola, as testified by Brian Davey. The judge intervened to ask whether Davey was more of a CBW expert than the accused. Ackermann said Davey was,and that Basson had duped the SADF, playing up the threat of chemical attack in order to persuade them that he had to spend vast amounts of money on research and defensive measures.

The Judge said that he had a problem with the State case, which centres largely on the non-existence of two laboratories at Speskop. He asked what the State would do if the court found it reasonably, probably true that there were, in fact, special laboratories at Speskop. The Judge should perhaps remember, Ackermann said, on what grounds he had sought the Judge's recusal last year. It would be well for Ackermann to bear in mind, said Judge Hartzenberg, that during the 1992 investigation into Basson’s involvement with Merton House, the names of various companies had come to light, including Blowing Rock Consolidated Investments, yet the South African Defence Force had not had a problem. Indeed, he said, the only ones who did have a problem about the various companies, were Ackermann and Office for Serious Economic Offences.

But, said Ackermann, did the SADF ever know that Basson and his Libyan "principals" were involved in those companies? According to the State, said Hartzenberg, project funds had been stolen and the SADF must have consisted of "absolute morons" not to notice or realise this. Clearly, said Ackermann, both the Office for Serious Economic Offences and the prosecution were wasting their time, the judge had indicated on various occasions, both in court and in chambers, that if Basson did not have such a high profile, the court would take an entirely different approach to the case. It was obvious that acquittal was inevitable, based on the judge’s comments.

Returning to the issue of the CAMS, Basson said he first met Aubin Heyndrickx in 1984, at a congress. He met Dieter Dreier independently after this, and also Jan Marsk, for whom, he said, Heyndrickx worked clandestinely. Although he had set out to make the acquaintance of Heyndrickx, he subsequently realised that Marsk was actually the man most likely to help him acquire CAMs, and that Dreier actually controlled Marsk. He said it was pure coincidence that he met Dreier through the CBW Mafia.

Basson said no CAMs were ordered through Heyndrickx in June 1987, and cannot explain a Graseby Ionics invoice, dated July 7, 1987, for 13 pieces of scientific apparatus, costing �48 100 – the exact price of CAMs at the time. Perhaps the equipment was air pollution monitors, said Basson, despite the fact that Graseby’s export licence specifies CAMs.

Wednesday 19 September

Before Anton Ackermann could start the day’s cross-examination, Basson informed the court that he had studied the record of Dr Brian Davey’s testimony overnight, and that Davey had confirmed Basson’s claim that Adamsite was used in a chemical attack against Unita troops in Angola. Davey had admittedly not been able to make this finding based on his in situ field tests, but was aware, through laboratory tests conducted afterwards, that Adamsite had been used. Basson also referred the court to the index of documents found in the four blue steel trunks, which lists communication he had with German scientists on the Adamsite incident.

Basson continued to claim that the Iraqi chemical attack he witnessed was on the village of Valapjar, Basson has now changed his earlier version of the date of the incident saying it took place in mid-March, 1988 which coincides precisely with the highly publicised attack on Halabja. Basson said the shrapnel he obtained for analysis came not from Valapjar, but from another, unnamed, village about 200km to the south/south east. The photographs which he later gave Knobel, were taken at Valapjar. It was while collecting the shrapnel.

He said that the R220 000 (�48 100) paid to Aubin Heyndrickx on January 27, 1988, was paid in advance, the date of the trip was not, of course, yet known, but the payment covered travel, shrapnel and setting up intelligence contacts.

Ackermann put it to Basson that this was yet another of his flights of fancy, that the trip as described never took place, and that the funds concerned were actually used to pay Heyndrickx for the 13 Chemical Agent Monitors which he obtained for Project Coast. The funds Basson claimed were used to pay Roger Buffham for another 12 CAMs, says Ackermann, were actually used for personal gain.

Basson was questioned about the NBC suit deal in which he claimed to have requested donations of NBC suits for UNITA. Ackermann put it to Basson that his version, that he had received donations of NBC suits from Libyan, Abdul Razak, was extremely unlikely.

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.

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