Story Filed: Friday, March 12, 1999 09:14 PM EST

Pretoria (Business Day, March 12, 1999) - The names of at least 24 countries on which chemical and biological warfare expert Wouter Basson spied are among details which the departments of defence and foreign affairs tried to keep from the public.

Also included are the identities of several foreign businessmen and scientists who assisted him in his efforts and the names of local and international companies that were involved.

A February 1997 court transcript giving some information about SA's Project Coast was released for publication this week after a two-year court battle. Project Coast was a covert chemical and biological warfare programme started by the SA Defence Force under Basson's leadership in the early 1980s and allegedly scrapped in 1992.

The court battle was waged by Business Day, its sister newspaper the Sunday Times and the Freedom of Expression Institute against the state, the two departments and the Council for the Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The release of the transcript of evidence by Basson during a bail application followed the withdrawal by the state last week of its 1997 claim that it was not in the interests of state security that the information be made public.

At the time it was argued that foreign nationals and companies had assisted Basson during the 1980s to obtain information and technology needed for the development of SA's chemical and biological warfare programme and that the identities of those involved should be protected at all costs. "Basson's life and the lives of those who had been identified by him in his testimony would be in danger should details become public knowledge," it was argued at the time.

Basson will face at least 50 criminal charges in the Pretoria High Court later this year, ranging from fraud and conspiracy to murder. The sudden change of attitude by the government department towards the release of the transcript came a few days before the department of defence had a Swiss television journalist, Jean-Phillippe Ceppi, arrested for being in possession of "highly classified" documents dealing with Project Coast.

The charges against Ceppi were withdrawn after the truth commission admitted it had given the journalist the information. "For years I moved around in different countries in Europe, the US ... the Far East and the mid-East to obtain technology in a manner which would not have been accepted by those I obtained the information from," Basson testified.

There was virtually not a European country he had not visited, the court heard. "I was busy with espionage, I was busy obtaining information for the SA Defence Force and I believe that very few countries would accept espionage against their industries."

Testifying about front companies established by Project Coast, Basson said there were "four or five, maybe six, but there were also private companies contracted to participate in the project".

The companies mentioned included Blowing Rock Controlling, Blowing Rock Investment, the Wisdom group and Organochem. Infladel was mentioned as a front company which had financial and administrative control over Project Coast.

Aviation companies that used to spend the R800000 annual transportation budget of the project were identified as WPW Aviation and Aeromet. Basson also had connections with individuals in several countries.

They included businessman Wilfred Mole, whose UK offices were used for some work relating to Project Coast, a Mr. Zimmer in Luxembourg, a Swiss pharmacologist named only as Dr Choe, US attorney David Webster and Russian interpreter Estinev Sergei, who could speak seven languages. Basson also spent some time with Belgian businessman Jean-Pierre Senaib at his home during the 1980s to "negotiate a certain connection with the Belgian defence force", the court heard.

Locally, the names which were kept secret for two years by the state included advocate Chris Marlow, who was legal adviser to pharmaceutical manufacturing company Delta G, and Jerry Brand, said to have been connected to Organochem. A part of the agreement reached between the state and the media lawyers last week was an undertaking by the Transvaal director of prosecutions Jan D'Oliveira that he would strive to hold all future criminal proceedings against Basson in open court.

However, should a request for in-camera evidence be made, media lawyers would be granted sufficient time to consider opposing such a move.

Copyright © 1999 Business Day. Distributed via Africa News Online.