Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-11

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Chairman, yes.  It was also in the '82 timeframe period, '82/'83 period, and it was against this background which I have explained to you now.  And Mr Chairman please, I don't want to justify what we did giving you all this background but I just feel it's relevant.  We acknowledged what we were doing.
 In that time period I was also internationally recognised, became then recognised as a scientist in the laboratory animal area which was a basis for good science because animals were always used as models for medical research.  I was approached one day by two persons, and I cannot remember their names, but I remember they came from a company East of Pretoria, in the Wilgers, and later on it was established it was Delta-G people, and they approached me for support for laboratory animals.  They told me they had a company, a private company involved in producing chemicals of all sorts, household chemicals, pool acids, etc, etc, and as we all know these products need to be tested for their safety, environmental impact etc, etc, and again the animal is the only practical model to test it in.  But they had no knowledge of animals and models for testing etc, and they've approached me to assist them in putting up a facility for themselves, and would I be willing to do it etc, etc.  
 Then being a private company I said no, surely we are keen to support the proper use and not the misuse of animals in research of which we had a lot of knowledge, but I am a civil servant and you know but surely I think it's to the advantage of the country to expand science and I would assist them.  They would have come back to me, they never came back to me.
 Then this trauma project with the Surgeon-General's department was under discussion and this also in the timeframe.  It was after the visit from the Delta-G people.  I had more contact with Wouter Basson.  But firstly in the project I had a veterinarian seconded to my institute by the name of Dr James Davies.

MR CHASKALSON: Where was he seconded from?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: He was seconded from the Special Medical Services.
 Now Mr Chairman I am not too sure what part of the Special Medical Services, but it was known that he wasn't from the normal medical and veterinary core.  Mr Chairman President or ex President de Klerk promised me a long time ago he would explain to all of us the putting together and the unravelling of the special structures of the army, the BSB etc, in fact that was in December 1989, and he promised to tell everyone about everything before January 1990.  I have never heard it, so please I cannot unravel where everyone fitted in, into these special operations business.
 Anyway Davies was known, and it wasn't a secret to me, that he came from one of these special operational areas.  But he was sort-of finished with his project and he was then available to serve out his term as a national serviceman, he was seconded to us to be available for research on the project.
 He did work on the trauma project and he had some contacts with Dr Wouter Basson on that, and then we had some discussions on the military.  We always had discussion on this thread.  It was the topic of the day, and who was the enemy and who was not the enemy.  And Mr Chairman if you ask me who was the enemy I will explain it to you, but I don't want to waste your time.
 Anyway I was approached at one stage to - we were also working, let me put it this way, we were also working for the army on a project on snake venoms.  The army was interested in buying a kit which could go with every platoon or section in the bush for the treatment of snake venom and this was the one for cutting - when the snake bit you, you cut yourself and you applied a suction apparatus and you suck out the venom and then you don't die from the snake bite, because being thousands of miles away, whichever country we were involved in at this stage, you won't be near proper medical treatment.  And we've been working with snake venom for months, we've published on this, the treatment, the efficacy of the apparatus etc.  We had access to all the snakes, mamba, cobra etc, boomslang whatever. Davies was involved in the animal side of this project also.
 And then I was approached to, in '83, and I am not too sure if we had discussions of formally developing biological weapons by then or not, before this incident or after, it was around the same time, I was approached to supply some - if there would be a possibility if we could supply some poison to eliminate an enemy of the State.

MR CHASKALSON: Who requested you to do this?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Wouter Basson, Dr Basson.
 We also had discussions around those times on chemical and biological weapons with Dr Basson.  You know you work on the project on trauma and you sit down and you wait for results and you have a cup of tea and then you discuss these things. What can be applicable and what no.  So at some stage we started discussing chemical and biological weapons and what the efficacy will be and what their place will be.  And then during that time I was also approached to supply him with some snake venom.  We did supply some snake venom, mamba venom, and we also supplied the mamba with the venom.  
 We also did some toxicity tests to establish the dose in non-human primates to see what sort of dose could be used.  I can tell you a minute quantity is necessary intravenously to kill someone instantaneously.  Intravenously in fact ...(intervention)

MR CHASKALSON: We'd prefer it if you didn't go into the exact details of quantities necessary, thank you Doctor.

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Okay.  It is published anyway.  It's not proliferation, it's common knowledge.

UNKNOWN: Sorry, can you just tell us, however, how much of that poison did you - was that the only poison that you provided at that time or was there something else that you provided and how much did you provide?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: During that time we also provided something else but that was then in the time - then I was starting to being approached to create an official testing facility for the Defence Force, to test chemical and biological products.  But before we've started with it, while I was still with the H F Verwoerd Hospital, I was also approached, and you've heard yesterday Dr Odendal at the time was the microbiologist employed by us for, no clandestine work, proper good scientific work, or positive effective work, we also were approached for some other endotoxins which we could supply to eliminate some enemies of the State and this is true.  These toxins and the key behind it was from the beginning not to be two things - detectable and if it was detectable then it shouldn't be traceable.
 In other words if you supply an endotoxin which is derived from a bacteria which is normally present in the gut flora of a human being, and you know with these toxins or these bacteria there are always some of them present in one's normal flora, so at any stage some conditions in your gut can go wrong and then the toxins can be produced and cause the disease.  So you can extract or have these organisms produce a toxin and you can inject the toxin into your victim and you can detect that he died from this but you would not be able to say if it was given externally or if it was derived from his natural source of bacteria under favourable conditions.  So therefore the term not detectable preferably, and if it's detectable then it shouldn't be traceable to a clandestine application.  
 And this was the request and there were some toxins which we worked on.  Dr Odendal also explained on some of those toxins in his testimony and that was the type of stuff we worked on.

WENDY ORR: Dr Goosen who was it who requested these endotoxins and gave you the criteria of undetectability and untraceability?

ADRIAAN JACOBUS GOOSEN: Dr Wouter Basson.