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

MR VALLY: No, I am putting to you that the person who cultivated it, said this is the amount he produced.  For you as the Project Officer of Project Coast, you wouldn't see that as untoward?

MR BASSON: Once again, one cannot measure 260 ml sample, you cannot regard that as a big or a small sample.  It depends on the cholera concentration. If he tells me how many organisms there were per millilitre, then I would be able to tell you, it might just be a little bit.
 It might be that he cultured his cholera, but he didn't distil it very well, so maybe there wasn't a very high moisture level with very few organisms.

MR VALLY: Fair enough.  Mr Odendal did in fact say that it was enough cholera to cause a major epidemic.

MR BASSON: I don't think with permission, that Dr Odendal had the knowledge, the experience or the insight of cholera epidemics, to know how many organisms are needed to create an epidemic.

MR VALLY: Very well.  For what purpose would let's look at Anthrax on cigarettes - do you see it dated 11th of August 1989?  Do you see that, on the second page?

MR BASSON: Yes, I do.

MR VALLY: What was the training purpose of putting Anthrax on cigarettes be?

MR BASSON: That would be for research reasons.  We obtained information that the Russians shortly after the Shertloff(?) incident, where a great anthrax factory exploded and it contaminated the area, that they had developed a new kind of anthrax and we obtained information that they used these anthrax cigarettes in contaminating their own people.
 We led a research programme to see if the different applying methods, if it was viable to do it or was it not viable to do that and for that reason, certain of these things were produced, and I would like to see how much.

MR VALLY: It says five.

MR BASSON: It seems like five cigarettes.  I would like to tell you that with five cigarettes, to create world wide chaos with five cigarettes, is a bit difficult unless everybody shared those cigarettes.
 What basically happened is that those cigarettes were handed over to our laboratory at Special Forces Headquarters, and they would test it, the life of this anthrax and to see how the anthrax is released through these cigarettes and we determined that it was a very bad method to cause anybody any harm.
 I would like to say that it is not possible to contaminate anyone with anthrax in cigarettes.

MR VALLY: So, these five cigarettes, according to you were infected or whichever word you want to use, with anthrax for reasons of testing them, to see if it was a proper delivery mechanism?

MR BASSON: No, not to see if it was a proper delivery mechanism, but to see if the information which we obtained from techniques which were used by the Russians, is correct or not.

MR VALLY: Then why would they take five different packets of cigarettes and put the anthrax spores on the filter of each cigarette?

MR BASSON: Because five packets of cigarettes, I don't know if this is the correct case, I don't remember, but I do remember or if I have to think about it, it would be tested over a period of time.  You are going to distribute, the are going to spread the time out, you are going to test each packet over several months and so that experiment would have lasted over months, and that would be the explanation for this.

MR VALLY: I repeat my question, why would it be necessary to put anthrax on the filter of a single cigarette and do it in five different packets, in each of five packets, there is one cigarette who has anthrax spores on it?

MR BASSON: For the simple reason that if you are going to use this in order to try and kill someone, you are surely not going to give one cigarette to the chicken and say, smoke this.
 Those cigarettes are going to be put into a packet, it is going to be transported, it is going to be driven round and about, it is going to be lying in the sun, it is going to be in his pocket, so we simulate these situations.

MR VALLY: I see, so you are saying that five individual cigarettes were infected with anthrax and put into five different packets to simulate an exercise?

MR BASSON: Let me correct the facts, I never said five.  I said different packets would be infected with this in the experiment.  I don't know if it was five, or ten or fifteen, it could have been twenty.  I cannot remember.

MR VALLY: But you are aware of it?

MR BASSON: I am aware of this experiment, and I am aware of the threat which was there.

MR VALLY: I need to find out about what else you knew about here.
 But now we will come back to the issue of the baboon foetus.  Dr Immelman said that you requested a baboon foetus from him.  Can you tell us your response to that?

MR BASSON: At various instances during the period of various years, I obtained foetuses from Dr Immelman.

MR VALLY: Are you aware ...

CHAIRPERSON: I think the question is what was maybe for my own curiosity, what was the whole point of ordering baboon foetuses?

MR BASSON: At that stage I was involved in research where we used alpha feto protein in the peptone synthesis.  Foetuses are a very important source of alpha feto protein and why I obtained these foetuses was to obtain this specific protein.
 And we also had developed certain cultures and I used something of this to develop these specific cultures.

CHAIRPERSON: Just as an aside and whilst Mr Vally prepares the next question, I don't know if you are aware that at one stage at the residence of the Archbishop, Archbishop Tutu a baboon foetus was found hung there, outside his premises.  It had nothing to do with Roodeplaat as far as you know?  Do you know anything about that?

MR VALLY: Mr Chairman, if I could add to that question, it is the same question Dr Basson.

MR BASSON: Yes, Mr Chairman, I will answer your question.

MR VALLY: I just want to add to that.

CHAIRPERSON: If you could allow Mr Vally.

MR VALLY: It is the same question, this baboon foetus according to this list, was delivered to Koos on the 27th of July 1989 and this baboon foetus which was found in the garden of Bishopscourt here in Cape Town when Archbishop was still Archbishop Tutu, was found in early August, shortly after this.

MR BASSON: Mr Chairman, yes, to answer your question.  I am going to answer it in two ways.
 One, when I finished with the baboon foetuses, without being insensitive, I threw those in the garbage bin.  This happened repeatedly.
 I don't know what Mr Vally is insinuating.  If he wants to insinuate that this specific foetus came from Roodeplaat with the view of bringing it to Tutu's home, this is an insult to me and Bishop Tutu, to postulate that I could think that something like that would have any influence on Bishop Tutu, except to fill him with contempt and I want to say I deny that I know anything about the baboon foetus in Bishop Tutu's yard.  I don't even know where it was found.
 What I am trying to say is on a regular basis, I obtained these foetuses and threw them away in the garbage bins at Headquarters.
 I want to state clearly that I have no knowledge whatsoever of a foetus whether from an ape or a baboon which would have been provided to use in Tutu's yard.  Nobody in the Defence Force which had any insight, would have thought that Bishop Tutu would have been influenced by anything like this, apart from making him more adamant to bring the regime to a fall.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera?

WENDY ORR: This is perhaps an aside, but as a Doctor I immediately ask myself why the baboon foetuses weren't incinerated if this was a properly controlled laboratory in which foetuses certainly could be potentially infectious material?