Trial Report: Sixty-Two - Special Report

This report covers judgment on Thursday 11 April 2002

Pretoria High Court judge Willie Hartzenberg has today (April 11) found Dr Wouter Basson not guilty on all of the remaining 46 criminal charges he was facing. Last June, Basson - former head of the South African Defence Force�s chemical and biological warfare programme, Project Coast - was granted acquittal on an additional 15 charges.

In accepting Basson�s version of events surrounding the alleged abuse of the CBW project, the judge rejected the evidence of almost 200 witnesses called by the prosecution over the past 30 months, as well as thousands of supporting documents.

The finding means that the judge has accepted as fact that while head of Project Coast, Basson was simultaneously serving the interests of a group of Libyan, East German and Russian intelligence agents whom he claims to have met through an international "CBW Mafia" headed by German industrialist Herbert Blucher.

Basson testified that his dual role had the approval of a succession of the SADF�s most senior generals.

By accepting this explanation, the judge has also endorsed Basson�s claim that more than 100 companies set up internationally under the aegis of the WPW Group, which he was accused of using to defraud Project Coast for personal gain, had actually served the SADF�s interests at all times.

The judge also accepted that under Basson�s leadership, the South African CBW project produced prototypes of weapons containing a mixture of the agents BZ and cocaine.

While the judge accepted the evidence of former members that one of the objectives of the SADF�s covert Civil Cooperation Bureau was elimination of enemies of the apartheid state, and that they used lethal toxins to carry out some of the murders to which they admitted, he said there was no proof that Basson had been consciously aware that these toxins were produced at Roodeplaat Research Laboratories, one of the two official front companies funded by the SADF to serve Project Coast.

As the judge pronounced Basson not guilty on all charges, there was applause from a group of about 30 supporters, including five former SADF generals - retired Defence Minister Magnus Malan, erstwhile SADF chief Constand Viljoen, former surgeon-general Niel Knobel, who was the Project Coast manager and Basson�s immediate superior, Joep Joubert, former commander of the SADF�s Special Forces to whom the head of the CCB reported, and Dirk Marais, co-ordinator of the SADF�s largely successful campaign to dissuade soldiers involved in the Angolan and Namibian conflict during the 1980s from applying for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The State immediately gave notice that it intends to seek leave to appeal against today�s full acquittal of Basson. The matter was postponed to Monday, April 29, when the judge will hear argument on why witnesses who incriminated themselves in fraud, murder and drug-dealing in order to implicate Basson in the crimes, should be granted indemnity from prosecution. On the same date, the State will indicate when it will be ready to launch its appeal case.

A full report on the outcome of the Basson trial will be distributed as soon as the full judgment has been studied.

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. Additional funding for trial monitoring was made available by the Swiss Campaign for cancellation of the Apartheid Debt and Reparations for Southern Africa.

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