Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-09

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Not the purity, if a chemical compound has a certain purity it doesn't matter what the dilution factor is involved there and the material that we did make was in the very high nineties, because we had quality control on this material.  Sometimes they produced it in a bit of a lumpy form, the crystal material - crystalline material that was obtained wasn't always - the particle size wasn't always uniform, but it was very high quality material as far as I am aware.

MR VALLY: You see there was a witness that we were supposed to have called yesterday and due to time problems he wasn't available to come today, he's gone overseas.  I want to show you something which I haven't given you before because we were going to ask the other witness to lead this evidence.  It talks about production quantities and this comes from Swartklips, this is where they weaponise it or put it into delivery systems - you're aware of the Swartklip products?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

MR VALLY: This is where CR gas and CS gas possibly were put into delivery systems, is that right?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes, we had a pyrolysis contact with Swartklip and specifically  Enslin Smit to look at the thermal stability of these compounds ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally, in terms of our agreement with Prof Haysom, has he seen the document?

MR VALLY: I don't believe Prof Haysom has seen this document, no.

CHAIRPERSON: Then he must see it if we're going to be in line with our agreement.

MR VALLY: I think Mr ... (indistinct) will ...  We don't intend releasing this to the public.

CHAIRPERSON: That may very well be so Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: Yes we will show it to him immediately, but if I could ask questions without going into scientific detail?

CHAIRPERSON: Prof Haysom, what's your attitude?

PROF HAYSOM: In all fairness I'd prefer to see the document before we question it's properties just from ... (intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I would have thought so Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: We'll adjourn for two minutes.

CHAIRPERSON: We'll adjourn for two minutes.

CHAIRPERSON: Are we ready to resume Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: Yes thank you Mr Chairperson.  Mr Chairperson I would ask that this Affidavit and more specifically the Annexure to it of Mr Enslin Smit, not be publicised in terms of Section 33 subsection 2.  Could I get that ruling Mr Chairperson?

CHAIRPERSON: No, what constitutes the Annexure you are talking about?  Oh, Mr Van Zyl do you have a copy of this document?

MR VAN ZYL: Mr Chairman no not at the moment, I told Mr Vally when he's got one at hand he can give me one.  He didn't have one available for me but he said he will give me one if he's got one available.

MR VALLY: We have no objection to giving it to him on the same basis that we asked that it not be publicised at all, I'm waiting for - we didn't believe it impacted on Mr Van Zyl's client, but we have no objection to him getting it, provided it's not published further.

CHAIRPERSON: It's just that if you are asking me for a ruling, I have to ask all the parties if they have anything to say.

MR VAN ZYL: Mr Chairman I've got a copy now, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Polsen, do you have any objection to the ruling that is being asked for by Mr Vally being made.

MR POLSEN: I have no objection Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Prof Haysom, I would assume that you're supporting Mr Vally in that ... (indistinct).

PROF HAYSOM: No objection, I support Mr Vally in his application Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van Zyl?

MR VAN ZYL: No objection Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: You have your ruling Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: Thank you Mr Chairman.  I'm sorry for all this, there's just one aspect that I want to ask you about.  The Affidavit that I've shown you and the first page, the Annexure, do you see it?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Are we talking about the thing that says "Production Quantities"?

MR VALLY: That's correct.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes, I've got it.

MR VALLY: I don't want you to go further than this, but there's two things I want to read to you, number one and number two.  Number one says "Grenade Hand Anti-Riot" and number two says "Grenade Rifle Anti-Riot".  It seems to imply that CR gas was put into a delivery system for riots, crowd control.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Crowd control system, I wasn't aware of that.  We did pyrolysis studies on CR and on CS, but we normally received the material either in powder granulated form mixed with kaolin and perchlorides and so on in order to test for the thermal stability of this or in pill form but never in a form like this which can be - in a device form which can be used for that dissemination purposes so I do not know about this and I was never told by my superiors about this.

MR VALLY: They do say and I refer to paragraph 5, that the teargas products were manufactured at Delta G CS and supplied ... (indistinct) ... this company.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: We made probably about two hundred (200) kilograms of CS as an experimental batch and we also received from Swartklip Products a CS formulation mixed with kaolin which we had to re-extract to get the CS back due to the fact that it was wrongly formulated.  That I do know about.

MR VALLY: Alright, that's all I want to deal with regarding this particular Affidavit.  I want to put to you there's a possibility that CR gas has been used for crowd control purposes in South Africa based on the Annexure and the points one and two of the Annexure that I referred to.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes, but I wasn't aware of that.  I do know that CR was actually initially developed as a riot control agent and not so much as a CBW agent and I don't think it's actually covered by the CBW Convention.

MR VALLY: Yes it is, it's a point I made yesterday when - CR gas I'm talking about.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

MR VALLY: Yes, if used on your own people you don't have to report it to the international authority, if you use it in a warfare situation, you do have to report it.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

MR VALLY: Alright, that's what the International Convention says.  I want to ask you another question relating to BZ.  Can you briefly tell us what BZ is?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: BZ is a ... (indistinct) ... (intervention)

MR VALLY: Don't tell us about the chemical formulation ... (intervention)

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No, I'll just tell you ... (intervention)

MR VALLY: Just tell us what it does.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: BZ was a incapacitant developed by the Americans, chemical warfare incapacitant and I believe that it was used for example in Vietnam in about 1966 or so.

MR VALLY: It appears that in 1989 there was a three year contract to produce BZ analogues and I quote: "with optimal psycho ... (intervention)

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Psychotomimetic properties.

MR VALLY: Oh right.  Sorry, yes.  What was intended and why?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: That was intended as a potential incapacitant in which you would have, which would have an effect on the guy that you make war against by working onto his central nervous system and disorientating himself either through hallucinogenic effect or similar central nervous effect so that he couldn't operate properly, but we had very strict conditions which we had set or objectives we had to set concerning the toxicity and lethality of these materials.  If I can remember correctly it should have a high minimal effective dose of about 1 mg but the ratio of minimal effective dose to the lethal 50 dose should be relatively high and it should be effective at around ... (intervention)

MR VALLY: Ja, we don't need those details.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Whatever.

MR VALLY: Who authorised that project?