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

DR BASSON: To put this in perspective, I have to give the answer like what I'm doing.   Mr Lourens' answer was out of perspective and I'm asking you to give as complete as possible an answer to give you the broad perspective and the full picture.   The answer is as follows:  every service uses this type of equipment.   It was part of our research instruction to investigate these things, it was not part of my project, this was handled by the technical director of special forces, Brigadier Engelbrecht, and this was conveyed to me by him.   I served as an intermediary between Engelbrecht and Lourens.   If Mr Lourens was under the impression that any of those screwdrivers he made could be used, those screwdrivers without poison were lethal, they were so large and so big that you could kill a cow with that.   It was important to see what the threat was, how it could be executed and how they had to be put together.  There was not the intention with the instruction from my side to manufacture murder weapons and I'm not aware of any individual or any instance when these weapons were used or were being planned to use, or where anything was issued for lethal purposes, they were only issued for technical evaluation.

MR VALLY: Well, these items which were issued for technical evaluation, and you're confirming that you did instruct Dr Jan Lourens to manufacture these, Dr Jan Lourens also advised us that he was asked to deliver this murder weapon to an agent in London.   What's your response to that?

DR BASSON: My answer is that Dr Jan Lourens is a miracle.  Anybody who could drink a bottle of Dettol would not remember long enough... (intervention).

MR VALLY: That was not my question, Dr Basson, my question was, did you instruct Dr Jan Lourens to deliver such an item, an applicator, to an agent in London, or Britain rather?

DR BASSON: I did not give Mr Lourens instruction to deliver an applicator to an agent in London.

MR VALLY: What's your relationship to the CCB?

DR BASSON: As a member of the South African Medical Corps and I knew I had to support all elements of the Defence Force in a medical way, I was responsible for medical support to the CCB.

MR VALLY: Did you supply them with any toxins at any stage?

DR BASSON: No.

MR VALLY: Did you supply them with any applicators at any stage?

DR BASSON: No.

MR VALLY: Were you involved in any of the operations whatsoever?

DR BASSON: No.

MR VALLY: What kind of medical support did you give them?

DR BASSON: Medicine.

MR VALLY: What kind of medicine?

DR BASSON: Pain killers.

MR VALLY: So your only involvement with CCB was to give them pain tablets, is that what you're telling us?

DR BASSON: Mr Vally, I provided medical support to the CCB, like I provided medical support to the rest of the Defence Force, when they were ill, I treated them.   If I could not do that, I arranged for their treatment.   If they needed medicine, I provided medicine.   If they required medical training, I provided that.   I did not provide that personally, I arranged that through the unit.   That was my involvement with the CCB, all-encompassing medical support to a recognised component, an official component of the Defence Force.

MR VALLY: Are you aware that Ferdi Barnard was convicted of attempted murder regarding the attempted murder of our present Justice Minister?

DR BASSON: I know nothing about Ferdi Barnard's situation.

MR VALLY: Do you know Ferdi Barnard?

DR BASSON: I've never met him before.

MR VALLY: Do you know there was an allegation that Ferdi Barnard was supposed to introduce a toxin into an item of food which the present Minister of Justice would consume and then get a heart attack, are you aware of such an allegation?

DR BASSON: I am not aware of such an allegation, but I would view it in the same light as that the British wanted to poison Hitler by putting poison in his water.   I did not try to compare the present Minister of Justice with Hitler, I tried to explain the action.

MR VALLY: Weren't you a member of the "binnekring"?

DR BASSON: I am not aware of such an organisation, can you explain what that means?

MR VALLY: I will.   "Binnekring", English word "Inner Circle", was a group of senior military officers within the South African Defence Force who are mentioned as a grouping, a sinister grouping, by the documents surrounding the Steyn Report, and I will show you the specific reference if you want to.

DR BASSON: Mr Chairman, I have no knowledge of the Inner Circle.   The only knowledge I have is what I saw on a television programme on TV.   I do not know the Inner Circle, I don't know of the existence of such an organisation, and I deny that I have ever been part of such an organisation, whether it's the Inner Circle or one or other sinister military organisation.   I was part of the ordinary Defence Force which had to support the government of the day.

MR VALLY: Are you aware of what's referred to as the Third Force?

DR BASSON: No, Mr Chairman, I'm not aware of a Third Force.  I hear this terminology used in various ways.   The only contact I had with a Third Force was a concept developed by the British in their various invasions, when they used a mixture of the police and the Defence Force to curtail local uproar.   It's a kind of a para-military force, like the Gendarmes in France.   I'm not aware of Third Force activities.  I read about it in the newspapers, but nobody could define what it really entails.

MR VALLY: Do you know or did you know Mr Alan Kidger?

DR BASSON: I don't know him at all.

MR VALLY: You're aware that he was killed a short while after he delivered a large quantity of mercuric oxide to Delta G?

DR BASSON: I'm not aware of it, that Mr Alan Kidger has died, I'm not aware about this person delivering mercury oxide, this was without my field of experience, and with permission I can think of no reason why anybody would kill anybody about mercury oxide, you can't do anything with that and it's used as a catalyst in a chemical reaction.   If Mr Vally wants to insinuate that he was killed because of the mercury oxide, I don't know, it's just as well to say that you kill somebody about Virodene.

MR VALLY: I want to ask you a question regarding the destruction of the - and I'll, rather than call it the destruction, I will call it alleged destruction of the drugs on the 27th of January 1993. There are a number of inconsistencies regarding the information you supplied to the co-ordinating committee and in the limited time I have, I want to point out some of them.
 Firstly, I refer to Annexure E3.   This is the certificate regarding the destruction of chemical products on the 27th of January 1993.   There's reference to product M, 18 blue plastic drums.  Would this be mandrax or methaqualone?

DR BASSON: I don't have this document in front of me.   The destruction of the substances has to do with my criminal case.   I have no comment regarding destruction of the substances, apart from that it had been destroyed as was explained.   We considered it, in which way to get rid of these substances.   After the Minister of Defence had given instruction to destroy this, I had to see to it that they were destroyed.   I have no comment about how it was destroyed, because I was - it's too near my criminal case.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't think we can take that aspect any further, I seem to recall it that even beforehand, when these questions around destruction of these drugs were mentioned, it seemed to have been the attitude of this present witness.
 Can I just ask you a few questions of my own, Dr Basson?    Were Drs Deon Erasmus and Bothma involved with the CBW programme?