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

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I was recruited by Doctor G L Lourens who was early in 1986 head of the Research Unit at Delta G Scientific and I have worked with him previously at a private company and I also knew him as a student.

MR VALLY: Did you know what Delta G was?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I was informed that, when I joined Delta G in April 1986, that we would be developing an analytical capability, defensive analytical capability towards Chemical Warfare Agents and that we would be doing some work on potential ...[indistinct]

MR VALLY: Were you aware that it was a military front company?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes, I was aware.  I only actually became aware at a later stage when I was asked to sign a document relating to the Official Secrets Act.

MR VALLY: What was your function at Delta G?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I started in April 1986 as a Chief Researcher and at that stage I reported to Doctor Lourens who was the head of my department.  At that stage Doctor Mijburgh was Managing Director of the company, Doctor Rahl(?) was Technical Director. There was a Mr Andre Redlinghuys who was Administrative Director and a Mr Barry Pithy who was involved in marketing.

MR VALLY: At the stage you joined Delta G, where was it located?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: That was in the Weldegraan Forum in laboratories and offices near Weldegraan in Pretoria.  We later that year in '86 moved over the present Delta G site on the Corner of George and Old Pretoria Road in Midrand.

MR VALLY: What specifically were your duties at Delta G?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: When I joined Delta G in 1986, they had just started developing CR.  The original process developed by Rahl and his colleagues only contained about 15% of this active.  I actually at that stage assisted Doctor G L Lourens and Doctor Hennie Jordaan in developing an improved process for making CR and when we moved over to the Site at Delta G Scientific in Midrand I was eventually practically alone, did the final scale up research on this project.

MR VALLY: We may come back to CR but just for the record, CR is a new generation teargas as opposed to CS which was the old teargas.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: That is quite right.  I also actually did develop an improved process for CS2 but this project was also initiated by Doctor Lourens.

MR VALLY: When you say Doctor Lourens, what's his first name?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Gert Lourens, it's not Jan Lourens.

MR VALLY: Thank you.  Now, was work assigned to you or did you determine your own projects?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Well, can I handle this chronologically if you don't mind Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: Certainly.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I developed, and as I said in the final stages I was mostly involved alone in the development of a scaled up process for making CR.  Following that I then started doing some commercial development and in this case I worked on compounds like Betahistine Terpeniol.  I worked on Simpi-retroid work, Phenadone, Chlorhexidine Gluconate, so these were normal commercial projects.
 At that stage Doctor Lourens was still the active head where the CBW work was concerned.  I probably became head of this CBW unit only in about August/September 1989 but I must mention this that the Analytical Department reported to me up to about February 1988 when Doctor Claus Psotta became head of that department until at least about January 1990.
 When I finished this work in 1989, about August 1989 there was a more formalised system of reporting introduced where CBW work was concerned and we had to report to Doctor Basson on a regular basis both in written form and we also on about a quarterly basis used to present our research results to Doctor Basson and also when Doctor Mijburgh was present at the offices of Medchem Consolidated Investments at Henopsmeer.

MR VALLY: We're going to come back to the involvement of Doctor Philip Mijburgh as well as Doctor Wouter Basson.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

MR VALLY: What I want to know is this, when you - I'd like to know this chronologically as well, it doesn't have to be in great detail but you can give me periods in terms of a few years, when you commenced your employment with Delta G, did you determine your own projects or did someone else determine them for you?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: When I commenced working there I was told to work on the CR Project with Doctor Jordaan and Doctor Lourens.  Then I was told to start developing commercial projects and we obtained leads where commercial projects were concerned, from the Marketing Department which was Mr Barry Pithy's department at that stage, before he became Manager of Delta G Scientific.
 Afterwards when I took over the CBW research, I inherited some projects from Doctor Lourens and this included the BZ analogues.  There was an Kanamodite Project and also CR analogues that was involved.  When I was doing commercial work I did have a project going as, for incapacitation which we called the Narcotics Project and this project was, if you would, I think I've got the project number here somewhere, I think that was, eventually became R43900688.

MR VALLY: This is the code name of a project involving narcotics?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Narcotics, analgesics and there were some piperidine derivatives and so on involved with this too and also some Indole alkaloid amines.

MR VALLY: Won't you give us that number again please?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: That was R439006/88.  And there's also in these documents ...[intervention]

MR VALLY: Sorry, '98 or 88?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: 88.

MR VALLY: 88, right.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: This had another code number previously, I think it was a 42 number.

MR VALLY: Alright, and this was part of the CBW programme?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes.

MR VALLY: It wasn't the commercial side of it?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: To a certain extent it was a commercial side too because some of the work that I did there and the research data obtained for this enabled us eventually, after the take-over by Sentrachem in August '93, to actually implement a commercial project in the narcotics field.  But I, basically I developed four primary new phentanyl derivatives which had a potential as narcotics incapacitants.

MR VALLY: Was any research in biological warfare done?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No.  At the stage when I joined Delta G Scientific, when we had moved over to the new site, there was also a Biochemical Division at Delta G.  That Biochemical Division  was started by Doctor Henni Jordaan and amongst other things he actually formulated a Petite Project there which eventually, when I took over in August 1989, we formulated it to be an anti-HIV sort of project.
 Some of these projects, there was a so-called Somnogenic Mirimeal Peptide that he had attempted to synthesise, which is some sleep inducing Peptide.  I also know that they had a project going which they tested personnel from the Army for drugs of abusive.  We had a full-time pharmacist there, Mr Steven Beukes who handled the MCC part of this and the scheduled drug registers.  
 When I took over from Doctor Jordaan, I'm not an expert on higher chemistry, Doctor Lucia Steenkamp who actually did this work on the Peptides obtained a PhD actually on the work and most of this work, as far as my involvement was concerned, was trying to develop Peptides and I think she eventually managed to do five of them which could couple onto the so-called CD4 lymphocytes and the idea was then to add an anti viral agent onto the backside of this peptide in order to see whether we could combat AIDS.

MR VALLY: What do you understand to have been the mission of Delta G?