Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-07-08

DR KNOBEL: Yes, you're quite right Mr Vally.  I may just mention that the company that had carried out this task, as far as I could establish afterwards, was given a contract by D John Truter in 1991, to establish a data base for the project.
 The decision that all the technical information of those two companies, we're talking mainly about Delta G and Roodeplaat, that that should be put on discs was confirmed by Mr Louw, the Minister of Defence in January '93.  The company had already had a contract.  I was not even aware which company was involved but the work had been done, it took almost a year for it to be completed.  You see we are here dealing with a minute of January '94 so that's a year later.
 When the trunks were discovered and I was invited by National Intelligence along with Colonel Steyn to come an evaluate the contents of the trunks, I immediately realised that those trunks contained most of the research, technical information of research carried out at Roodeplaat.  There was some of Delta G but you will agree with me it's mainly Roodeplaat work.  And my first question was, these are the documents that were supposed to have been destroyed and which we had reported here that all technical documents had been destroyed.  
 And that was when I started asking questions of National Intelligence and I can confirm that in June last year, the trunks were discovered February/March last year, in June last year when we were discussing the technical information on the documents vis-a-vis the technical information that was supposed to be on the discs, that I was informed by National Intelligence that this was in fact done by Data Imaging Information Services.  That was the first time I realised that it was this particular company.

MR VALLY: So the factual situation is that we have - you've been referred to as both optical discs and CD rom, put together by Brigadier Wouter Basson.  The company which had the contract was the one where Dr Mijburgh, I think he said he was the sole director, he may have had one other director, and subsequently, to the best of your knowledge, no-one has ever checked those discs?

MR KNOBEL: No, you're right.  I can give you additional information, a member of the South African Medical Service was seconded for this task and that was a - I believe a Dr Kobus Bothma.  He was fully seconded to help with placing the information on the CD roms.

MR VALLY: Did you get any report from him?

MR KNOBEL: No, he's left the country.

MR VALLY: Is he also in Canada at the moment?

MR KNOBEL: I believe so.

MR VALLY: The fact is that we know that Brigadier Basson advised you that he had destroyed all the technical documents.

MR KNOBEL: Absolutely.  He also does at a Co-ordinating Management Committee meeting.

MR VALLY: And the fact is that we know he lied.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, that's true.

MR VALLY: So he may have lied about lots of other things?

MR KNOBEL: That's also true.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera?

DR RANDERA: General, I think I'm coming back to a point I've dealt with you already, but can I - I'm trying to understand the situation.  You've sold off all these companies, we're dealing with incredibly sensitive material, material that you haven't even cast you eyes on,

MR KNOBEL: Yes.

DR RANDERA: Any it still - the contract still goes to a private company.  My first question is, was there no capability within either the Intelligence Services or the Military Services to be putting that information on, and following from that, does it not open, again coming back, we're not dealing with material of minutes of a meeting, we're dealing with material that the country wants to protect at all,

MR KNOBEL: Yes, I agree.

DR RANDERA: And yet it's given to a company, a private company, I presume all the individuals who work within that company don't have to go through lie-detector tests and everything else that Intelligence Agency people go through.  Can you try and make me understand ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Sorry, Dr Randera, I just want to add to your question, just a little bit, and the evidence we received yesterday, was the equipment which was used to place this information on disc was in fact supplied by the Defence Force as well.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, but the way I understood it, Dr Randera, to answer you question, is that the person who actually dealt with the documentation was either Brigadier Basson personally, who understood the contents, and this Dr Kobus Bothma that we had seconded for the purpose.  So, as I understood it, nobody else had any access to the information that was on the documents.

DR RANDERA: But you don't know?

MR KNOBEL: I don't know.

DR RANDERA: You don't, I mean I just need the truth of the matter.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, that is the truth.

DR RANDERA: That's speculation.

MR KNOBEL: That is true.  No, but it's not only - it's not speculation truly, it is how it was reported to us, but you are right, we don't really know.  It was reported as such to us.

DR RANDERA: My first question, was that capability not there within, you're using the people from, in your own words, you're using Brigadier Basson and Dr Bothma, who are military people already, you're providing the computer services or the computers, and yet it goes to a private company.

MR KNOBEL: Yes, again Dr Randera, I can't answer that question other than saying to you that the contract had been placed with this company already in '91 according to the documentation that we found, contractual documentation, which is now in the possession of the Office of Serious Economic Offences, and it was a contract that had already been in existence and this work was then done there.  And it was approved by the Co-ordinating Management Committee, and it was reported back to them.

CHAIRPERSON: Advocate Potgieter?

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Chair.  Dr Knobel, I'm not quite clear, can you perhaps just try and be as explicit as you can in explaining to us, what did you actually do to comply with this duty that the "Beheerkomitee" Control Committee placed on you in terms of this minute J4 of the 24th of January 1994, paragraph 5(c),
"The Surgeon-General must satisfy himself that all relevant information has been correctly loaded onto the discs"
and the rest of it, all technical documentation was destroyed.  What exactly did you do?

MR KNOBEL: Right, advocate Potgieter, we're talking about January '94.  On the 31st of March '93 Dr Basson was retired and placed on pension and placed on the Citizen Force Reserve, and with the direction of the Chief of Defence Force, was used in his Citizen Force capacity to continue the termination and privatisation of some of the companies, to try and recover the funds in Croatia, and also to complete the task of placing the technical information on discs.  That had been approved by the Chief of Defence Force.  He worked on that for a full year, until we get to this meeting where we're now saying the data has not all been placed on discs.  The new project officer was Colonel Steyn.  Colonel Steyn had to liaise direct with Brigadier Basson and with Dr Kobus Bothma who we seconded to help him with the task, in order to keep me informed.  You see at those minutes Colonel Steyn reports that it has been completed in the first paragraph, and I'm then given an instruction to determine whether it was done correctly and that all technical documents had been destroyed.

DR RANDERA: Yes.