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

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally?

MR VALLY: Dr Neethling, let's just go back to your responsibilities as a Major-General in the Police, we're talking about the period of this transfer of dagga.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I get an indication about how long you think you're still going to be with this witness providing for cross-examination and all that?

MR VALLY: I think it will be in the region of 35 minutes.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, right.  He has to catch a flight, when does he have to go?

MR VAN ZYL: I think we can even stretch it till 16h15, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Vally, do you think by 16h15 you will be through?

MR VALLY: Mr Chair, we have an in-house travel agent, we can arrange a later flight quite easily.

MR CILLIERS: There is no....

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, no, but I just wanted to find out from you in terms of what you think you're going to put.  Can you try for 15h15?

MR VALLY: I will, I will go faster.

MR VALLY: In your capacity as Policeman to whom drugs were sent for testing, I assume that confiscated drugs were also left under your control in your laboratory?

GEN NEETHLING: They were left in the control of the laboratory per se, that is correct.

MR VALLY: Right.

GEN NEETHLING: Behind locked doors.

MR VALLY: Right.  Why would you accumulate such large amounts?

GEN NEETHLING: No, no, we did not want to, we had to, because the Police would steal it otherwise from the bloody Departments where they were working.  In other words, when the case was finished, instead of destroying them, some of the Policemen, even at that time, made money.

MR VALLY: Fair enough.

GEN NEETHLING: So we decided, and maybe you missed that thing, we decided that this would be locally stored, and we would take control, and when we had enough, we would go and destroy it.

MR VALLY: Right, now that's my question, why would you accumulate such large amounts, to increase the risk of them being stolen?  Why wouldn't you, as the matter of course, destroy an amount immediately after the case was concluded?

GEN NEETHLING: You are not aware of how a laboratory functions, and if you want to go to a laboratory and see the evidences pouring from the doors, from the windows, there is no time to think about that, except if you have a schedule, like we have.  Once per year, or when the storage places are full, then we had to get rid of that.  It was not a determined time, indefinite, you don't know when these cases will be finalised, some of those cases last 10 years.

MR VALLY: Now, you would have a reason to destroy drugs only if the case is complete?

GEN NEETHLING: That is correct.

MR VALLY: So once a year when you were destroying drugs, you wouldn't destroy all the drugs, you'd only destroy the drugs in relation to cases which are completed?

GEN NEETHLING: That is correct.

MR VALLY: Why would you accumulate such large quantities of drugs?

GEN NEETHLING: Because one case could bring you 10 000 and 30 other cases would bring in many more.

MR VALLY: You just told us you destroyed these drugs once a year.

GEN NEETHLING: That is correct.

MR VALLY: It seems like an incredible security risk.

GEN NEETHLING: It might be like that for you, but at my time there was no security breach at all.

MR VALLY: Yet you would let 200 000 tablets, put it in the boot of an individual who drives off, without any concern on your part about security.  When you earlier said that you didn't trust the Policemen because they may sell the drugs again onto the streets.

GEN NEETHLING: Policemen are not medical doctors, he has the right to put it in his boot.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(inaudible) not just an ordinary person, he was not even in that case, he was a medical person, coming from the State Army or a State Army component, and that's the basis on which he relied on him being the recipient of it.  I don't think he's going to improve on that.

MR VALLY: Fine, I'll move onto another issue, Mr Chair.  As a chemist, if you're conducting tests on whether a substance can be effectively used in the form you wanted it to be used, to be mixed with other constituent elements which would allow it to be used in teargas, or to make it water soluble, why do you need such large quantities ...(intervention)

GEN NEETHLING: They're not large quantities.

MR VALLY: For the, no, let me finish, for the testing of the suitability of those drugs, because you were justifying the large quantities to, I believe, to Ms Sooka just now, saying, that's not so much, it's only 3000 teargas grenades.  I'm putting to you that you hadn't even determined whether it was effective or not yet, you hadn't even tested it.  You complained that the heat destroyed the active element, the methaqualone and therefore it wouldn't be of any use.  You've earlier told us that in your laboratory you only worked with small quantities, that's how chemists work.  You first do the test in small quantities, and thereafter you mass-produce if it was, if your thesis is correct.

GEN NEETHLING: That's not true.  I said, and I repeat, listen well, 50 kilograms, 33 grams per grenade, that means, just hang on, let me finish ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: I'm so sorry, I did you correctly the first time.

GEN NEETHLING: Okay.

MR VALLY: I did hear you correctly.

GEN NEETHLING: That is why we had very little to work with.

MR VALLY: I ...(inaudible) that as a chemist and a scientist, that you do not need to make a few hundred or a few thousand grenades to test the effectiveness of a certain chemical substance under certain conditions.

GEN NEETHLING: You're wrong, you are absolutely wrong.  I don't know what your profession is, but if you are a scientist, then I'm scared of you.  A chemist is not a pharmacist, and there are people in the audience who cannot speak Afrikaans very well, but a chemist is not a pharmacist, he's a scientist.  As far as I'm concerned, if you just want to go and look what means a pilot plant to say that today I'm making a grenade for the Defence Force.  That means a few thousand grenades before one is released in this that it's good enough.  We had the biggest trouble to make, to get a few hundred grenades of CR gas operative, and we used a few thousand.

MR VALLY: We're not getting much further, but if the issue is the effect of heat on the chemical and the destruction of the active element of that chemical, I put to you, that it would not have been necessary to supply the quantities you supplied.

GEN NEETHLING: You are wrong, Mr Vally.  The reason is very simple, for 30 grams in a grenade which you want to process effectively, you cannot come with small quantities and expect to change it back into large quantities, that's not how it works.  You do the formulation, you do your best, you do your measurements in a small apparatus, 20/30 grams.  Thereafter you go and you produce a larger grenade and you burn it and you get the gasses, and you are lucky if you get an answer the tenth time.

MR VALLY: Let's go on.  You were very please with the results that you obtained vis a vis CR gas, is that correct?

GEN NEETHLING: Yes, we were very happy with that.

MR VALLY: And you saw it as very effective means of crowd control?

GEN NEETHLING: That's correct.

MR VALLY: To use in anti-riot situations in South Africa?

GEN NEETHLING: That's correct.

MR VALLY: We've had Dr Koekemoer here giving evidence, saying that CR gas, or may I should ask you one more question before that,

GEN NEETHLING: Please do.

MR VALLY: And was it used on a large scale in South Africa?

GEN NEETHLING: It was used on two occasion of which I know, and then thereafter, twice operationally.  How many are being made now I do not know.  I do not know what the total capability was of CR production.

MR VALLY: I'm not asking you that, what I want to know from you, is was it issued as standard anti-riot equipment after its approval?