Observer investigation: British arms dealers linked to apartheid's Brigadier Death

06/07/1998
Observer investigation: British arms dealers linked to apartheid's Brigadier Death

THE South African military scientist in charge of the former apartheid regime's top-secret chemical and biological warfare programme used a network of British business contacts to amass a personal fortune, The Observer can reveal.

Brigadier Wouter Basson, a 47-year-old physicist, is now reviled in South Africa after details emerged of his role in the weapons programme.

South African prosecutors have visited Britain to investigate his network of contacts. Last week a former major in British intelligence admitted receiving payments of pounds 2.5 million, transferred into a bank account in his name, by a company Basson controlled.

The international investigation is trying to trace pounds 30m which was to be spent in Europe under the guise of Project Coast - a top-secret scheme, led by Basson, to acquire materials to make chemical and biological weapons in the dying years of apartheid.

Basson has been called to give evidence about the project this week at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Cape Town. Scientists working under Basson developed special poisons to cause heart failure, cancer and sterility in the black population. One aim was to develop devices to kill opponents of apartheid without trace.

These included poisoned T-shirts designed to kill student activists and screwdrivers fitted with 'micro-needles' filled with deadly chemicals. Brutal experiments were carried out on live baboons and dogs.

One of the most extraordinary plans was a scheme to develop a pill to turn whites into blacks, enabling the 'master race' to infiltrate the ranks of the enemy.

Basson faces criminal charges alleging that he siphoned millions of pounds from Project Coast into his personal accounts. Last summer prosecutors from South Africa's Office of Serious Economic Fraud interviewed a number of British executives about his activities in this country.

Basson ran a network of front companies based with their accounts in the UK, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and Croatia. These were set up to acquire chemical weapons technology.

Among his British contacts was Major Roger Buffham, a former bomb disposal expert who worked for military intelligence and is now head of security at the Jockey Club.

In the late 1980s, Major Buffham set up a company selling aircraft security systems with two military colleagues. Through this company he met Basson, who had established a base at a cottage in the village of Warfield, near Ascot, Berkshire.

Couriers would come to the cottage to visit Basson, collecting cargo and bringing back devices for him to approve. One courier claims he visited Basson to demonstrate a poisoned screwdriver.

Basson and Major Buffham met eight times and made a series of financial transactions now at the heart of the case against Basson. Major Buffham has given a statement to the South Africans and is a key prosecution witness.

There is no suggestion that Major Buffham provided any equipment which could have furthered South Africa's chemical and biological warfare programme or that he was aware of it. Investigators are particularly interested by two payments into Major Buffham's Lloyds Bank account in Grantham, Lincolnshire, made by Basson's Luxembourg front company, Amfra. In March 1988, pounds 1.5m was paid into the account, followed by a further pounds 960,000 two months later.

A charge sheet produced by the South African investigators suggests the payments were for chemical detectors and other operational equipment. Major Buffham admits receiving the payments but says he did not supply anything that could have been used for Basson's weapons programme.

He understood the money was transferred into his account so that Basson's front companies could buy shares in other European businesses. The money was paid back into a Swiss bank account after Basson told Major Buffham the share transactions had fallen through.

Major Buffham's company was given a 1 per cent commission on the deal, and he now admits that it wasn't the 'wisest thing to do'.

He concedes his company did supply the South African Defence Force with security equipment, anti-bugging devices and bomb-proof clothing. Once, one of Basson's assistants visited him in Grantham and paid for video decoders by handing over thousands of pounds in cash from a briefcase.

Last week Major Buffham told The Observer that he had not been aware of Basson's activities in connection with Project Coast. He said his dealings with Basson had been closely examined by the Serious Fraud Office and the South African prosecutors.

'The SFO have sent me a letter confirming they are not investigating me or my company,' he said.

South African investigators allege Basson ran a sophisticated scam using government money for goods that were never supplied, creating false invoices and pocketing the money himself.

The prosecutors looked at two other British companies: RF Telecommunications and Graseby Dynamics. Again there is no suggestion that they supplied the chemical weapons programme or were aware of it. Wilfred Mole, chairman of Ascot-based RF, was questioned last year about a payment of pounds 14,000 from one of Basson's companies. He told The Observer he had 'never heard' of Project Coast, and while he admits dealings with Basson during the 1980s he said the goods supplied were radio transmitters for ambulances.

South African investigators also believe Basson acquired hand-held monitors from Britain capable of detecting mustard and nerve gases. The monitors - used extensively in the Gulf War - are produced by the Watford-based Graseby Dynamics, and could be sold only to Nato countries. Basson bought them from a third party in Belgium.

The extent of British involvement will emerge at this week's Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, which are expected to take evidence from about 20 witnesses, including four scientists who co-operated with Project Coast.

Basson ran the South African Army's Seventh Medical Battalion. But his role went far beyond medicine. He and his scientists worked on projects that are incredible to Western researchers. In one of the most bizarre schemes, three chimpanzees were used in experiments to make black women infertile.

The infertility programme was headed by Daan Goosen, 47, a respected vet and pathologist. Goosen was managing director of a South African Defence Force front company, Roodeplaats Research Laboratories. 'The chimps were a cover for developing an anti-fertility vaccine,' said Goosen. 'I was told the growing black population was the overwhelming threat to white South Africa. The anti-fertility project was approved by the South African Defence Force at the highest levels.'

Animal rights groups also claim that organophosphates were tested on live animals, often young baboons and dogs, so researchers could see how long it took them to die.

One of the most lethal devices said to have been developed was a fence combining barbed wire and a deadly charge of electricity to enable police to erect mobile barricades around rioters.

After a series of security leaks in the early 1990s, the South African Defence Force's counter-intelligence service began investigating Basson. Project Coast was closed down at the end of 1992. Basson left the army months later.

Following the truth commission's hearings, Basson is expected to go before a criminal court to answer the fraud charges.

He is also accused of trying to sell 1,000 Ecstasy tablets to undercover police. It is alleged that government laboratories manufactured up to a ton of the drug at a secret laboratory near Pretoria.

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