Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

JAN LOURENS: Not that I know of, but Bart Hetima had a long history of association with the South African Police and I know that at various stages he did various different types of jobs for the South African Police.   Bart was very close to General Neethling, but I'm unfortunately not able to give you specifics in terms of particular other projects that he ran for the South African Police.

MR VALLY: Did you at any stage raise your concerns about the kind of things you were asked to do with any senior military people, or politicians?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, I - that had been a number of incidents and I had to incidences where I discussed the matter with firstly, Dr Basson.  Just after the incident of my handing over the screwdriver in London I was on a train, I got onto a train between London and Ascot and it was co-incidental that Dr Basson was in the same train.  It's not the same trip, it's  a completely different trip, but it's subsequent to it, and I sat down with him, I asked him, I said to him doesn't it bother him, and how does he justify, how does he sort of make peace with himself.  His answer to me was quite clear, and in Afrikaans he said to me "Ek het my saak uitgemaak met die Grootbaas, wat jy doen is jou saak" he's sort of been able to settle his mind, his relationship with God and whatever, if I hadn't it was my baby.  I once again later had a brief discussion on this issue with him and we actually didn't even discuss it.  I raised it and it - we didn't go into discussion, it was sort of an old subject.  Just before I left the organisation, I made an appointment to see General Knobel.  I was, I just felt that the project was going wrong, it was going to strange directions.  Once before when I'd asked Wouter on a particular aspect, and I would lie if I would tell you what the aspect was, because I can't remember, I asked him whether the Surgeon General knew about this, and he was really annoyed with me for even asking him whether the Surgeon General knew about this, so I went to see the Surgeon General and I said to him, but you know - I asked him, I said do you bear knowledge of these chemical weapons, these applicators as you call them, that we were being manufacturing, and there was a money aspect at concern, I mean the life that was being lived by the project group, inclusive of myself, was an abnormal life, I mean it was a life of great luxury, and this great luxury varied from person to person, but nevertheless.  And General Knobel replied to me, he said I had to bear in mind that as far as the offensive is concerned he bore no knowledge of it, it's not his project.  Wouter had another reporting line.  As far as the other aspects was concerned, money, etc, etc, it was something that he would look into, and that was it.  When I - when Charles bought into the company, what happened was the following, is Charles never knew of my running the so-called screwdriver project and Charles's auditor/bookkeeper stumbled onto this unknown fund, these payments and he questioned it and I simply said to him is that I am not going to disclose to you what it was about.  Being a businessman he insisted on knowing what it was, and I just said to him, I'm going to have to talk to my senior officers about this and I'll come back to you.  I'll talk to the people.  At that stage, unfortunately, my relationship with my colleagues was not a comfortable one anymore.  I had to a large extent made up my mind to leave.  I did approach Philip and Wouter and I must again be quite honest, I cannot recall whether it was Philip or Wouter, but I had no joy, and I decided to be arrogant enough and just go and see the Minister of Defence.

MR VALLY: Just before you go on, when did you tell
General Knobel about the Surgeon General, when did you tell him about the offences?

JAN LOURENS: It was late '92, early '93.

MR VALLY: And his response was it wasn't his project.

JAN LOURENS: It wasn't his project.  Offensive stuff was not his project and he didn't know about it and he quite frankly didn't want to know about it.

MR VALLY: Okay, go on.

JAN LOURENS: I approached a friend that was a university with the then Minister of Defence, Mr Roelf Meyer.  We got an appointment the next morning.  We flew down to Cape Town.  I briefed my friend.  The Minister wouldn't see me, but he saw my friend.  He discussed the situation with him, and he referred us back to see the Surgeon General that afternoon.  We flew back to Jo'burg, we saw General Knobel that afternoon at 16h00.  General Knobel just said to us, guys I'm not going to talk to you, you going to have to see General Kat Liebenberg, then Head of the Defence Force, and we went to see General Liebenberg.  We arrived at his office, and he said to us there's no story to be told.  His words were, "You must remember those toys are mine, I want them back" and that was it.

MR VALLY: What was he referring to?

JAN LOURENS: He was referring to the screwdrivers, because I discussed the situation, when he reached his point, he'd already been briefed, when we reached him he had already been briefed about what the situation was and then there was no issue in terms of money, he was aware of the screwdrivers, he was aware of what I had done, of the stuff that I had been involved in and we had two whiskies and we went home.  And that was it.

MR VALLY: When was this?

JAN LOURENS: '93, February/March '93.

MR VALLY: When he asked you for his speelgoed, his toys, had you had possession of it?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, at that stage, what I had in my possession was a number of screwdrivers, the two OMO boxes, the sheet explosives, in other words the stuff that Phil Morgan gave me, the stuff that Danie Wahl gave me.  The sequence of events was the following, I left, I had a meeting with Charles one evening and he asked me, I at that stage has resigned, he asked - I resigned and I said I was willing to stay on for a sixth month period to hand over to whom ever.  Charles asked me to vacate my office the next morning, and I vacated my office, but I removed all of the equipment that I had, all of the weaponry, and I - at that stage we owned a farm  in the Northern Transvaal at a place called Steenbakpan.  You know, I was very uncomfortable, and I dug two holes and I buried everything in the two holes, and I left it there.  Then, last  year, I decided to tell the story.  I, after I had discussions with Dr Tobie Pretorius of the offices of the Attorney-General in the Transvaal, and he requested me to go and fetch to stuff, and we went back and we fetched it.  We were able to recover the screwdrivers.  All of the explosive devices were in a total state of decomposition and very unstable, and they decided to detonate after having taken photos, to detonate the equipment on site, and I obviously gave it all to him then.

MR VALLY: Are you aware of any other sales besides the prototype of the binary chemical weapon to foreign buyers?

JAN LOURENS: No, Mr Vally.  You know, at the time that I left there, there had been one technology agreement with Taiwan.  I was party to the initial stage in which we were transferring or negotiating the transfer of testing facilities.  Testing, meaning defensive equipment evaluation testing and so forth to Taiwan, and that project was as far as I know finalised and executed between Armscor and Taiwan and executed fully, but I don't know the details thereof.

MR VALLY: Did you ever see any experimentation carried out on baboons with teargas.

JAN LOURENS: Just once.

MR VALLY: Can you tell us about it briefly?