Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-18

MR VALLY: And you are aware that there are certain legal formalities which have to be complied with in order to be in possession of certain substances listed?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes.

MR VALLY: And are you aware that it was the Medical Control Council that had to authorise the possession or use of Methaqualone?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No I wasn't aware of that, that they were in control of Methaqualone per se.

MR VALLY: Well amongst other drugs but that was one of them.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I am aware of the fact that they have had general control over all drugs that are abuse, that are used in abuse.

MR VALLY: Well as a medical doctor are you aware that methaqualone is an active substance in Mandrax?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes I am Mr Vally. You asked me this question last week too and I confirmed yes I do.

MR VALLY: Right and so the question is were you aware that this was an illegal transaction?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No I was not aware that it was an illegal transaction. I was under the impression that with the authority that we had from the Minister and from the Commissioner of police that legalised what we were doing.

MR VALLY: Can you tell us expressly and crisply what happened to the 200 000 Mandrax tablets given to Dr Basson?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I have no idea.

MR VALLY: You have no idea?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I have no idea. I was certainly informed that the contents of the tablets were all collected together and was used as a ground substance to research the possibility of creating an incapacitating agent out of it.

MR VALLY: And was this before you started importing your own Methaqualone from Croatia or after?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: I am under the impression or I was under the impression that the Methaqualone that came out of Croatia is what is reported as on our shelves in the letter that I showed you this morning in November 1992. Where it says clearly that we had 500 kg of substance M.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera, sorry Mr Vally.

DR RANDERA: General can we just understand. If I remember correctly and you know we have heard a great deal of information in the last two weeks. If I remember rightly from Dr Koekemoer Delta G had the facilities for producing and in fact there is documentation to that effect that it wasn't even part of a research project. It was seen in that document that we have within our file shows that the Methaqualone that was produced was not even for, didn't fall within the hard projects. Now if you had a facility already and you had the ability to produce Methaqualone here in South Africa why was it necessary to go all the way to Europe with a person where there is a great deal of suspicion already to go and buy some more Methaqualone?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Dr Randera I am not entirely sure that I agree that having the ability to produce an incapacitating agent is exactly the same.

DR RANDERA: Sorry General we were told explicitly the other day.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: By Dr Koekemoer?

DR RANDERA: That Delta G was set up as a company not only for research but to mass produce if necessary.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: That is correct.

DR RANDERA: Now we were told by him. In fact he gave us the amount that they produced in this one year. I think it was 1988, 1989 where they produced 500 kg of Methaqualone. Now that facility was there. It was set up by you as the head of this operation.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes I understand your question.

DR RANDERA: But in 1993, 1994 you then send Brigadier Basson - sorry if I have got the times wrong.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No it is not right. But Brigadier Basson (...intervention)

DR RANDERA: But what I am trying to understand is why is it necessary when we have got the facility already that can produce whatever amounts that you require?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Dr Randera the substance or the ground substance if I could use that term, that you require to produce what we were producing at the time namely a possible incapacitating agent was Methaqualone. The information that I had that, that Methaqualone were obtained in Croatia in 1991. The reason Dr Basson went back to Croatia was to recover the funds which had been lost at the time.

DR RANDERA: But still does not answer my question which is you have a facility.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Dr Randera I didn't testify to you that Delta G made a 1000 kg of.

DR RANDERA: It is documented. It is not only Dr (...intervention)

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Within the Delta G files?

DR RANDERA: Documents that we have where Dr Koekemoer points out to us that the facility was there, the abilities were there, the skills were there. You are not telling us that you went to buy that, Dr Basson went to Croatia just to buy the ingredients. He actually went to buy the substance Methaqualone.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: That is correct.

DR RANDERA: And yet you had the facility already to produce it from 1986 onwards.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Well I must say to you that the impression I had was that the Methaqualone which is reflected on our shelves in the letter that I showed you this morning which was dated November 1992 was the Methaqualone that had been obtained from Croatia. I was not aware that, that Methaqualone was produced at Delta G or delivered by Delta G and I would like to see that if you have such a document that can show that to me. It may be so yes if Dr Koekemoer says it was produced at Delta G that is news to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Wouldn't it be in the documents you received from us General?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes I have but I must admit Mr Chairman it is a mass of documents that I have not been able to scrutinise all that carefully.

MR VALLY: It is under the code name Mr Chairman Mosrefcat.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes I saw those documents.

MR VALLY: And we can give you the exact reference if you want it but it has been given to you.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Yes but I would like to say the following Mr Vally as I understood it that was the project to use Methaqualone to produce a derivative which could be used as anti-capacitating agent. If you saying that those document does not reflect that then I accept what you say.

MR VALLY: If I could follow this particular point up. You see what is of concern to us is in terms of the table you gave us on chemical warfare agents the only psycho chemical referred to is BZ. There is absolutely no reference to Phencyclodine, Ecstasy, Mandrax or Cocaine.

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: Exactly.

MR VALLY: Or cannabinoids being used as incapacitates that this is nowhere in any of the scientific texts that we saw. And the question we are putting to you is if none of the scientists around the world were of this view on what basis was Project Jotta of the view that Mandrax or Ecstasy or Cocaine or Dagga could be used as incapacitants for crowd control?

DANIEL PETER KNOBEL: No you have made a number of assumptions here that are not correct Mr Vally. There are many scientists who all over the world and General Neethling revealed here that in America that is exactly what they are doing. They are looking at all kinds of drugs that are being used on the streets there as possible incapacitating agents. He made that statement here in his testimony. And this is the information that we were given at the CMC and that we would have to obtain some of these illegal drugs if that is what you want to call it, so that we could investigate the possibility of creating incapacitants of it. And you have the record of the briefing given to the Minister where I indicated that we have three possible incapacitating agents. One which was a BZ derivative which is the one which is listed in the chemical weapons convention clearly. And the other two was the Methaqualone one and the other one was the Baxil Project. I mentioned that the Cocaine and the cannabinoids were also considered to be possible incapacitating agents.