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Trial Report: Fifty-Eight

This report covers the period Monday 5 November - Thursday 8 November 2001

Final argument in The State vs Wouter Basson began in the Pretoria High Court on Monday 5 November 2001. Dr Torie Pretorius began by outlining the State's case on Charges 25 to 27 which pertain to the accused's alleged involvement in drug dealing.

It had to be borne in mind, said Pretorius, that Basson is an exceptionally intelligent and highly qualified individual. In addition to his impressive array of academic qualifications, he was responsible for drawing up the psychological profiles used by the South African Defence Force to select Special Forces recruits, and was acquainted with all the Special Forces operators during his time in the military. He is also a qualified explosives expert.

Basson's military career included his involvement in highly sensitive and classified operations, numerous intelligence operations and the CBW project. He successfully completed a number of military courses, some of which are the equivalent of an MBA, and can lay claim to expert knowledge of project management. He has travelled extensively, is articulate and has more than a working knowledge of several foreign languages.

During the course of his career he rubbed shoulders with leaders across the entire political spectrum (PW Botha, President Nelson Mandela, prominent Libyans, members of the Co-ordinating Management Committee, Madame Danielle Mitterand, Russians, East Germans etc) while simultaneously dealing with arms smugglers and drug lords.

In short, said Pretorius, Basson was a rare and particularly intelligent witness, an expert in several fields and as such, capable of offering plausible responses to any questions. Not only does he have an answer for everything, he has the ability to embroider on his responses with elaborate anecdotes. He also said that it should also be borne in mind that the keynote of South Africa’s CBW programme, in which he played the leading role, was deceit. Front companies and cover stories were the order of the day, plausible deniability the watchword. Basson’s testimony was riddled with such terms as "generate like crazy", "financial engineer", "maneuvers" to create illusions, "pseudo-deals", "false documents", "manipulate the situation", "orchestrate events", "facades". Directors of front companies "didn’t have a clue" and fell for cover stories "hook, line and sinker".

Pretorius argued that Basson’s prolonged involvement in ultra-sensitive operations were a key factor in this case. No effort was spared to ensure secrecy, all available information was gathered in order to plan operations, and cover stories were devised in advance to protect his activities. This military strategy became second nature to Basson, who was well schooled in dealing with interrogation. His testimony in this regard was: "The most valuable lesson they taught us in Special Forces was, if it is clear to you that your interrogator does not know what he is talking about, you can spin him any story you like. He can inject you, hit you, strangle you, but if the interrogator does not convince you within the first two minutes that he is already in possession of facts, all you have to do is play along, that’s the way Special Forces work. The basic lesson operators were taught is that they do not have to remain silent forever under interrogation. If captured, they have to refuse to give any information for the first 24 hours, to allow their comrades a chance to get away from the area. After that, they can tell their captors anything they like."

In the world of "smoke and mirrors" in which he moved, especially in the latter phase of Project Coast, Basson himself acted as both information and disinformation officer. His world was that of the spy and it would be entirely accurate to describe him as a master of deception. Cover stories were carefully crafted to include just enough of the truth to withstand scrutiny. Just as Basson described David Webster as someone who knew how to legitimise a front organisation so that it appeared perfectly normal, Basson himself has the ability to present a defence so convincingly that it appears true. His description of the myriad incriminating documents presented to court as "dynamic cover stories that could be adapted to suit the circumstances" applies equally well to his own defence.

Pretorius contended that Basson's version of events had to be evaluated with the greatest possible circumspection in order to conclude to what extent it consists of imaginative legal stratagems specifically designed to mislead the court.

There was undisputed evidence before the court that incapacitants, including narcotics, had played a central role in the research and doctrine of CBW for the last 20 or 30 years. As project officer of the chemical and biological warfare programme, Basson was at all times in control of the research and the actual substances produced at Delta G Scientific. Even after the privatisation of the front companies he exercised control over the manufacturing process by means of regular research reports, as well as over the final products, which had to be delivered to him personally.

Not even Delta G’s own scientists, like Dr Johan Koekemoer, had any idea what was done with the MDMA he delivered to Basson. Neither Delta G employees nor any outsider, such as Grant Wentzel, would have had any way of knowing if the MDMA was mixed, for example, with Cocaine, or if it was shipped directly to Swartklip Products or Armscor for weaponisation after delivery. Basson alone knew those details. In addition, he personally signed for receipt of 500 000 Methaqualone tablets and nine tons of cannabis provided by General Lothar Neethling of the SA Police Forensic Science Laboratory. The 1 200kg of Methaqualone allegedly manufactured during Project Mosrefcat were also delivered to Basson, who played a leading role in identifying, liaising and negotiating with suppliers of all these substances or precursors.

Basson was personally involved in the purchase of 80kg of Cocaine in mid-1992 at a cost of $250 000 from South America, assuming the role of international drug lord for purposes of the deal. He was also personally involved in the initial acquisition of Sassafras Oil, precursor for MDMA, via the British and/or Chinese "mafia".

Basson was the only person who had a key to the Defence Supply Depot in Dequar Road, Pretoria, where he testified the bulk incapacitants were stored. The depot was inside a military complex and neither Dr Philip Mijburgh nor Dr Wynand Swanepoel, for example, would have had access to it. Basson also testified that it was he who kept the registers of distribution, and that he was personally responsible, when the project was shut down, for the destruction of all equipment, records and the pyrotechnic laboratory at Speskop.

Basson’s was the only testimony that pyrotechnical tests were carried out on the incapacitants. Hekkies van Heerden, who Basson had named as a participant in the process is dead and no other witnesses were presented to corroborate Basson’s version.

The defence had put it to Delta G Scientist, Dr Johan Koekemoer that it made perfect sense, for purposes of physiological evaluation, that certain incapacitants would have been encapsulated. Invoices for a State contract to encapsulate a substance had been personally delivered to Basson and he alone arranged payment. When pharmacist Steven Beukes vacated his office at Delta G, Koekemoer found 49 red and yellow capsules in a cupboard, and these were subsequently found to have contained Ecstasy.

Basson, however, had tried to convince the court that he had no idea what Beukes was encapsulating, but that it was possibly antibiotics for resistance movements. At the same time, he had admitted that he was in charge of the operation which saw "tons" of medication despatched to UNITA and RENAMO from at least 1981 to 1990. Clearly, said Pretorius, the encapsulation of any substance in 1992 could not have formed part of the medical supplies for resistance movements.

The only reasonable conclusion was that whatever Beukes was encapsulating at that time, it was not an innocent antibiotic or analgesic, but Ecstasy, and the court should thus reject Basson’s denial that he was fully aware of this.

There were serious discrepancies in the testimony of Basson and Mr H regarding the destruction of incapacitants, particularly in respect of the taking of samples and timing of delivery to Military Intelligence which according to Mr H took place a full 33 days after the destruction flight. There was no corroboration for Basson’s account of what quantities of incapacitants had been used for pyrotechnical tests.

Pretorius said that it was agreed by the State and Defence legal teams that Basson and Grant Wentzel had contact with one another from time to time, and spoke to one another telephonically. Basson claimed he acted as adviser to Wentzel in regard to arms deals and financial matters. On one or two occasions, Wentzel delivered boxes of wine to Basson, and a good relationship existed between them. The accused’s account of how the black plastic refuse bag came to be in his possession prior to his arrest on January 29, 1997, had to be rejected as totally improbable. It was ludicrous to suggest that Wentzel, still in a state of shock following his own arrest just days before, would have been capable of devising a complex and highly risky set-up to frame Basson, as claimed by the defence.

Pretorius said that there was no reason for Wentzel to falsely implicate Basson in the drug deals, and the suggestion that he did so, made no sense. The entire scenario sketched by the defence could have been scuppered by the simple act of Basson looking inside the mysterious black bag when he found it. All he would have needed to do, if innocent, was contact his good friend General Neethling, or any of his other high-placed government contacts, and Wentzel’s would have been arrested. No one could believe that Wentzel had foreseen that Basson, as he claims, would not open the bag and discover the Ecstasy.

Suggestions that Wentzel himself was behind the encapsulation of the Ecstasy hold no water, given the strict controls exercised by Basson himself over the product delivered by Koekemoer.

Basson’s claim that he arrived at the Magnolia Dell rendezvous (where the alleged drug deal took place) 30 minutes early because he urgently needed to use the toilet, borders on the farcical, said Pretorius. Basson's home is directly opposite the parking area, and any reasonable person would have used his own toilet in preference to a public facility. Pretorius said the story had been made up to explain reference on the taped conversation between Basson and Wentzel during the sting operation to Basson having arrived early "to check out and make sure everything is OK".

Pretorius's argument was interrupted frequently by Judge Willie Hartzenberg. Hartzenberg said that Basson was not the only person involved in Project Coast with access to Ecstasy, others including Dr Hennie Jordaan, Gert Lourens and Jerry Brandt could all have arranged for a quantity to be purloined at some stage during the production process. After all, said the Judge, a ton of MDMA was manufactured someone and someone else could have stolen some of it and had it encapsulated.

Judge Hartzenberg said the accused had testified that he had no idea what Beukes was encapsulating at Delta G, but that it was probably antibiotics for "an epidemic in Swaziland or somewhere" and asked what proof the State had offered that Beukes was encapsulating Ecstasy? Or that Wentzel had not obtained a number of capsule shells himself for this purpose? For that matter, why could any one of the Delta G scientists not have purloined a quantity of MDMA "from the plant next door" and gone into Beukes’s office after hours and encapsulated the substance himself?

As to why Wentzel would falsely implicate Basson, the Judge said this might quite simply have been because at the time of his arrest, Wentzel was fully aware that Basson had been head of a classified government project, and might have hoped that by naming him as the supplier of Ecstasy, the entire affair would be covered up and swept under the carpet.

Clearly, said the Judge, what the State expected was that the court should find that the accused is so intelligent, so accomplished at misleading "everyone", that no matter how credible his version of events, it was a lie. The State should bear in mind, said the Judge, that in the world of smoke and mirrors, nothing was as it seemed, and in order for the court to reject out of hand the bizarre versions furnished, there had to be seriously irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

Wednesday 7 November 2001

Responding to the State argument on the drug charges, advocate Tokkie van Zyl reprised his argument for acquittal earlier this year, expanding on it only to the extent that Basson’s own testimony and pointed questions from Judge Willie Hartzenberg demanded.

Van Zyl said that Wentzel was a "cunning liar" and self-confessed drug dealer, who would go to any lengths to save his own skin. Wentzel was in "serious" trouble following his arrest in a police sting and on being offered the chance to cooperate with police by furnishing them with the name of his supplier, had seized on Basson, whom he knew had been involved in classified military projects. Wentzel had obviously also been aware, through his conversations with Jerry Brandt, that a large quantity of Ecstasy had been manufactured at Delta G Scientific and had regarded Basson as "the man who would get him out of a fix".

Believing that he would escape prosecution if he identified and helped police to detain his "supplier", Wentzel grabbed the opportunity to implicate Basson. But, Van Zyl argued, Basson knew nothing at all about Wentzel’s drug deals and was totally unaware, on the morning of January 29, 1997, that his meeting with Wentzel at Magnolia Dell was in connection with Ecstasy.

As he had testified, Basson was under the impression that the meeting concerned an arms deal, and the R60 000 given to him by Wentzel was part payment of an earlier business loan. Basson had not inspected the contents of the black refuse bag he found in a box of wine given to him by Wentzel a few days before but, said Van Zyl, even if he had done so, he "would not have known that it contained drugs". Basson was aware that as a commodities broker, Wentzel dealt in "almost anything, including homeopathic remedies" and had he in fact seen the capsules in the bag, might well have thought they contained an innocuous herbal preparation.

The conversation between the two men and taped by the police was admittedly disjointed, but the court should bear in mind that not once was any mention made of drugs, Ecstasy or capsules. The reason no such references were made by Wentzel, said Van Zyl, was that Basson would immediately have asked him what on earth he was talking about.

Further proof of Basson’s innocence was his reaction when confronted by detectives, namely relief – an extremely strange response from an alleged drug dealer – and his insistence that the plastic sachets containing the capsules, be tested for fingerprints. The fact that this had not been done by police, could not be held against the accused.

Furthermore, police had not searched Wentzel’s home following his arrest, but they had conducted a search of Basson’s home, which turned up no incriminating evidence. All the evidence pointed to Basson having been framed by Wentzel, said Van Zyl, and the court should accept the version of events offered by the accused and acquit him on the remaining three drug-related charges.

Court has adjourned until Monday, November 19, when Dr Torie Pretorius will launch the State argument on the human rights charges.

 

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]

 
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