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

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Funny, I've never been informed about the Project Coast, I've received these documents from the TRC and a lot of us at Delta G have never been informed to the full extent of Project Coast and what the objectives were.
 We were actually doing work on a need to know sort of basis.  I knew that where the CBW work was concerned, that we were not to work on any lethal agents but to specifically work on potential incapacitants of which CR was one example of them.
 We at stage, I think that it was AECI that actually manufactured CS for the government and they moved out of this and then I was, Doctor Lourens was requested to develop a process for CS because the process that we obtained or we were told were used by the previous company were not very effective, I think it gave a yield of about 60.  
 Doctor Lourens started working on this and then I completed the work and we developed a process for making CS with very high purity and high yield.

MR VALLY: Were you aware of the facility at Roodeplaat, the RRL laboratories?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I was aware to the extent that Doctor Lourens at a stage submitted a request for testing some of our potential incapacitants.  In his case I think it was specifically BZ.  I also submitted a request for testing some of these fentanyl derivatives and also a number of the CR analogues that we made.  I did give a couple of samples of the narcotic derivatives for them to test but they were charging us an arm and a leg for this and the results were not very successful.
 I think the quantity of materials they gave, it was a normal tail flick test for narcotic analgesia which has been published by Jansens Laboratory which we requested and that was not very successful because the dosage that they gave these animals were too low.
 I'm not sure, I know that one of my assistants did also request having BZ tested there but I'm not sure whether she ever sent in samples to that purpose.  As far as Roodeplaat was concerned I did go and see the people there to discuss the testing of my materials and specifically Doctor Wynand Swanepoel but that is all contact I ever had with Roodeplaat Research Laboratories.

MR VALLY: Were you ever present at these tests into the chemical substances at Roodeplaat?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No, never.

MR VALLY: Did you ever get reports on a testing?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I only a report on Narcotic Analgesics which was not successful.

MR VALLY: And the testing was done on baboons?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No, no, no, not baboons, it was a mouse flick tail test which they did on rats I suppose.

MR VALLY: What was the role of Doctor Wouter Basson?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Well, Doctor Basson kept a very low profile where Delta G was concerned and I said, from August 1989 I had more regular contact with him because we had to report to him on a quarterly basis.
 Prior to that you would see him sometimes in the evenings coming to Delta G but you never knew whether you had to greet him or not to greet him and so on.  So he was - we actually called him: "The Skim", in that regard.  
 I know, I've heard that he also from time to time on an informal basis, requested some of the analysts to do some analytical work for him but it was never a formal sort of thing, with the exception of two projects.  
 One was a project where Brian Davies brought some pieces of metal in there which he said was a bomb that had exploded in Angola and which could potentially contain Chemical Warfare agents.  We did a lot of work, probably 1000 man-hours went into that search and I eventually, we did manage to establish that Adamsite was involved in that specific case.  
 In the second case there was some grey powder that was brought to us that they also said was some material that was obtained from Angola and we analysed this and, the sample wasn't very big, and we could tentatively identify that it was one of the mustard gases but the sample was so small that we never could confirm it with a gas chromatography mass spectometry to actually establish that it was HM2.

MR VALLY: When you say you didn't know whether to greet Doctor Basson or not, what did you mean by that?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Can you repeat that question please?

MR VALLY: When you say you did not know whether you should greet Doctor Wouter Basson or not, what did you mean by that?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Well what I meant was, you would walk into a restaurant for example and because he kept a low profile we were never sure whether we should show the people around us that we recognised him and greet him for example.
 When I had to report on this Adamsite I was called to Military Headquarters there at Henopsmeer and I was introduced to a number of people which he said were from outside the country involved with this CBW and I had to give a pseudo name in that case and just give my report, so it was very 007.

MR VALLY: So it was all very secretive and you knew he was involved in a manner in which he didn't want his involvement known publicly?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Yes, but I do think too that he kept a low profile in the case of Delta G Scientific because we were a front company and he didn't want to compromise our situation for obtaining chemicals and so on from outside the country, imported chemicals.  And this would also influence our commercial activity which we were supposed to be doing.

MR VALLY: What contact did you have with other military personnel besides Doctor Basson?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: The only contact I ever had with other military personnel was with Commandant Ian Joubert who brought us some urine and blood samples and said we must attempt to analyse.  There was apparently some toxic substance that had poisoned a number of Koevoet people and they wanted to find out what this was all about, so we did analyse and we found some Thallium in these blood and urine samples.
  And then he brought us blood and urine samples over a period of time to do the analysis and I was then asked to supply them with Prussian Blue.  There was no Prussian Blue, a very small quantity, 25 grams I think was available from Merck in this country so I took actually some technical material and purified this for this purpose and then gave it to them.

MR VALLY: What was the nature of your daily interaction with Doctor Philip Mijburg when he was the Managing Director?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Well Doctor Mijburgh was Managing Director of Delta G Scientific initially and then when Medchem Consolidated Investments, I don't know the history of Medchem, but when Medchem Consolidated Investments was established in 1990, he became Chairman of this group but he still retained what he called being Chief Executive Officer of Delta G Scientific.   And we, I did my research work and we reported this to Doctor Basson in his presence normally and at a certain stage, I believe it was in 1990 about May, I was asked to develop a pyrethroid synergist and this was apparently a prelude to making MDMA Hydrochloride, developing a process for making MDMA Hydrochloride for them.

MR VALLY: Who was this who requested it?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: This was Doctor Mijburgh that requested this.

MR VALLY: Now let's just understand what the MDMA analog is.