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

MIKE ODENDAL: To suspend the organisms into a suspension, to dissolve the freeze-dried clot or little pellet that you have in the container.

MR VALLY: Fine, and then you go on, "this includes water, milk, etc".  You envisaged that it would be reconstituted in items other that just water?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: I submit to you that that's possibly because you wanted to put it in items other than water.

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, that's possible, yes.

MR VALLY: If you look at 2.11 it gives you the symptoms if you are infected with it, so you could determine which poisons were more effective and which ones were not?

MIKE ODENDAL: Mr Chairman, I'm not sure if I understand you correctly.  We did not, you know, infect humans or animals with these organisms.  I just prepared them and put them in a bottle and I put in all the literature, all the information I thought necessary to ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Alright, sorry, I withdraw that question.  Look at 2.7, sorry, I'm trying to rush, you're talking about dosage, dosage for what?

MIKE ODENDAL: That would mean if you had to ingest that amount of organisms you will get sick.

MR VALLY: So, sick or more serious than just sick?

MR DU PLESSIS: You see it all depends, I don't think the actual dose has been established for humans.

MR VALLY: Well, look, go one back.

MIKE ODENDAL: So, it will basically on my part it will be speculation if I had to tell you, now this will cause disease, hopefully it will, hopefully, you know, ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Hopefully it will.

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, depending on the type of action you
intended it for.

MR VALLY: Let's go one back, to TRC 98.  Look at 1.7 there.
Look at the second paragraph, this deals with the Anthracite, 
"one drop of this taken in all over is a fatal dose and
will be approximately 10 to the power 8, or contain 
10 to the power 8 organism."
In a lot of these items you were in a position to determine what dosage would be deadly.

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, that was speculation.  I can assure you ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: But this is what you say here, a fatal dose.  You were just speculating?

MIKE ODENDAL: Because that was the concentration I had in the vile.

MR VALLY: And you do that with a lot of these items?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: Alright, now ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Excuse me, Mr Valley, I'm very sorry, but what do you mean by this?  It's a speculation to say each drop of this if it is taken, is a deadly dosage, what do you mean by that?

MIKE ODENDAL: Strictly speaking, if you ingest one spore or one organism, that may also be deadly.  If it goes into your intestinal canal and if it is absorbed, specifically through an ulcer, or a broken part of your intestinal muculical membrane, then strictly speaking, one spore will also be deadly, because it will enter the body and it will multiply and multiply and the incubation period will only be a bit longer.  So, I assumed that if you ingest this 10 to the power 8 organism, I assume that it will be deadly, because it's a lot of organisms.

MR VALLY: Were you specifically asked by any person to determine what would be the fatal doses?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, I was asked to include this information leaflet, or to make it as complete as possible for the simple reason is that this was part of our - of a request we had from the Defence Force that we must include all the information, including the dosages and all the information, well, I could say all the relevant information.

MR VALLY: Who specifically asked you to determine what doses of these items would be deadly?

MIKE ODENDAL: Dr Immelman, let me put it to you this way, he asked for all the - he requested me to put in all the information, but again, you know, I would like to re-iterate we did not test or do any tests apart form the mouse test, that was the only laboratory test we did on Anthrax.

MR VALLY: And all the baboons and dogs and the chimpanzee you had besides, I'm not talking about field farm, I'm talking about the baboons and the chimpanzee and the dogs that you had for experimentation purposes at RRL, where they never used on those animals?

MIKE ODENDAL: No, I did not have - well, although I had access, I could have had access to the experimental animals if I wished, but I did not use experimental animals to test the efficiency or the doses of these bugs.

MR VALLY: What was the role of Dr Wouter Basson in the work you were doing?

MIKE ODENDAL: Dr Wouter Basson was our main contact with the Defence Force.  He visited us once a year I saw him and he would come along to us and he would discuss certain things, projects they were interested in, and we had to make - we had to submit all our projects to him and he would decide which of those projects he was interested in for funding, from the Defence Force.

MR VALLY: What did Dr Wouter Basson know about your project?

MIKE ODENDAL: That's difficult to say, I'm not sure.

MR VALLY: When you met with him once a year, did he indicate that he was aware that you were making these items?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, he was aware, and I think he also knew that these organisms are basis standard organisms that are used by all the countries involved in biological warfare.

MR VALLY: Yes, but specifically he had knowledge you were making these items at Roodeplaat?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: What did General Knobel know about your project?

MIKE ODENDAL: Mr Chairman, you'll have to excuse me, I did not know Dr Knobel, I did not meet him, I honestly, I cannot answer this question.

MR VALLY: These documents, 98, 99, etc, dealing the Anthrax, Brucella, Cholera, Typhoid, Bella-typhoid, Botulism, were all these items, these reports submitted to the Defence Force?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: And who would they have gone to?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, I submitted my report to Dr Immelman, and I presume he gave them to Wouter Basson, but I never saw those reports again, and I never heard anything about those organisms either.  So what happened after that, after I gave it to Dr Immelman, I really don't know.

MR VALLY: Dr Odendal, you worked together with Dr Immelman for a long time, how many hears?

MIKE ODENDAL: Let's say 8 1/2  years while I was a Roodeplaat.

MR VALLY: He tells you, and I assume you socialised with him also?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes.

MR VALLY: He orders 16 bottles of Cholera.  Surely at some point you said, what did you call him, whatever, Dr Immelman, that is a large quantity you asked me to produce, yesterday, what did you do with it by the way?  Surely you must have asked him?

MIKE ODENDAL: I did not ask him the Cholera, but I did ask him about the Salmonella.

MR VALLY: And what did he say?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, he gave me some - that was the only incident where I had some feedback, where he told me that they used it in sugar to disrupt an ANC meeting.

MR VALLY: Where was this?

MIKE ODENDAL: I'm not sure.  I presume it was in Johannesburg, Soweto, some or other place.  He didn't elaborate on that occasion.

MR VALLY: And when was this?

MIKE ODENDAL: It's difficult, I have to make a wild guess, but it would be '89/'88, I'm not sure.

MR VALLY: Are you aware of whether anyone suffered any illnesses as a result of this?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, apparently they became very ill, but no-one died.

MR VALLY: You didn't make any informal enquiries about any of the other items you produced?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, they couldn't tell me, and even, I don't think - even if he wanted to, he couldn't tell me because ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Did you ask?

MIKE ODENDAL: Yes, because ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: And what did he say?

MIKE ODENDAL: He told me he doesn't know.

MR VALLY: Did he say what he did with it?

MIKE ODENDAL: Well, he told me he gave them to the Defence Force and what happened to that he didn't know and he couldn't tell me.