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

MR VALLY: With some item in the handle.  There is a document, I'm referring to TRC '96, it should be with the section 29 notice, if I could just read it out to you, I'd like to know how this works.  This appears to be an issue regarding quality control, it says,
SKROEWEDRAAIER
 1.  Die skroewedraaier het 'n paar probleme opgelewer.
1.1 Die suier klink om op die agterkant en sit dan vas in die silinder as gevolg van die slag op die aluminium suier;
 1.2 Slegs 2 tot 2.5ml van die ongeveer 5ml van  die silinder mates word uitgespuit.
  2. Die lawaai is baie sag omdat dit 'n geslote kamer is.  Dit is aanvaarbaar.  
AANBEVELING
1. Dat die silinder van 'n harde metaal gemaak word, soos byvoorbeeld, vlekvrye staal.
 2. Dat die silindervolume verklein word na ongeveer 2.5ml sodat alles met een skoot uitgespuit kan word."
Do you know the document I am referring to?

JAN LOURENS: No, well, I've seen it since you've issued to me, but not before.

MR VALLY: What we are curious about, is it seem to be signed by - do you recognise the signature at all?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, it's Dr James Davies.

MR VALLY: And it seems as if Dr James Davies is doing an assessment of these screwdrivers.

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: Who would communicate this to you?  Who would tell you the screwdrivers are not working properly?

JAN LOURENS: He would.

MR VALLY: He'd tell you personally?

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: And then you would improve on them?

JAN LOURENS: Well, I would tell Morgan, listen it didn't work so well, try something else, then he would try something else.

MR VALLY: Was this something which happened regularly?

JAN LOURENS: No, no, as a matter of fact this is that this particular incident in terms of having had a problem with the technical aspects thereof is completely new to me.  There were one or two cases, it wasn't an active process of feedback and continued development at all.

MR VALLY: So, Dr Lourens, by this stage, when you started being a conduit for making such instruments, you could call them potential instruments of death, you probably realised that, or were more involved than you were when you first started with the project?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, but I was involved with - at that stage I was driving the chemical defence project.  I - my only involvement in terms of anything offensive at that stage, was acting as this conduit between Phil Morgan on the one side, and the users, and the users was really, I either gave the units to Dr Basson or I gave the units to Roodeplaat Research Laboratories, and that was my only involvement.  I really was just the handler and payer of the equipment.

MR VALLY: So you personally gave this to either Dr Basson or to Dr Davies?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, absolutely.

MR VALLY: Did you ever give them to any other person?

JAN LOURENS: Never - no, no one incidence, I was asked once by Dr Basson to move one of the screwdrivers and two vials filled with a chemical substance to the UK, and I then took it to the UK.  I ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Do you know when this was?

JAN LOURENS: Sure, late '80's, maybe 1990, but I don't recall accurately.  I then moved the screwdriver, and I must be honest with you, I cannot recall whether that screwdriver was mailed across to a mailbox, or whether I hand-carried it.   What I do know is that I hand-carried the two little glass vials, if that's the correct word, with me when I travelled to the UK.  I then had to meet a man ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Let's start at the beginning.  Who asked you to travel?

JAN LOURENS: Dr Basson.

MR VALLY: And what did he say the purpose of your travel was?

JAN LOURENS: I had to hand over this mechanism and demonstrate the mechanism to an individual.

MR VALLY: And did he tell you who the individual was?

JAN LOURENS: He didn't - he told me I would meet a man at the station, and he told me that I had to be at a certain time at a certain station, and that this man would meet me, and this is exactly what happened.

MR VALLY: And did he tell you what were in those glass vials, the ampoules?

JAN LOURENS: No.

MR VALLY: What did you suspect was in there?

JAN LOURENS: A poison.

MR VALLY: Oh, I see.  Did you ever - by this stage you felt your involvement, did you ever question that, or why did you agree?

JAN LOURENS: I didn't question it at that stage.  I did question it at a later stage, subsequent to this hand-over, but at that point I didn't question it at all.

MR VALLY: And why not?

JAN LOURENS: Mr Vally, it's a difficult situation to answer you.  You know on a hindsight we have all this wisdom, but at that point in time, I mean, it was this closed project, we were fighting this great enemy, it was this absolute total secret, super-secret project and we worked on such a strict need to know basis that we questioned practically nothing.  I didn't question it at that stage.

MR VALLY: Who funded your trip?

JAN LOURENS: I don't know, I can't remember, because some of those trips I funded, and some of the trips was funded by the company that I was working for at the time, but eventually the South African Medical Services funded it, yes.

MR VALLY: Was there more that one trip?

JAN LOURENS: No, there was many many trips, but there was only one trip in terms of hand-over of this type of weapon.

MR VALLY: We're coming back to the handing over of these items.  What were the other trips about?

JAN LOURENS: On the chemical defence side, I travelled to Europe very very often to try and acquire technology, or products with respect to chemical warfare clothing, we negotiated a gas mask transfer, a technology transfer project into South Africa, activated carbon, all kinds of aspects around the pure defence project.

MR VALLY: And all these trips and, including the work of Mr Hetima and I believe you said Mr Coleman?

JAN LOURENS: No, Morgan.

MR VALLY: I'm sorry, Morgan, I beg your pardon.  These were all carried out by or under the company's systems research and development?

JAN LOURENS: Initially, yes, and, but I left the company in 1987.  What happened in 1987 is that I left the company to focus only on the chemical protection side, on the defence project.  So, I left the SID electronics side and I left the cubie laboratory side.  That was taken over by a man by the name of Johnny Koertzen, a Special Operations Psychologist, he took over from me, but as far as the interface - as far as the screwdrivers is concerned, I remained involved as far as that specific part is concerned, and that I remained involved in for quite some time.

MR VALLY: Alright, let's just go onto the screwdriver that you were asked to take with the two ampoules to Britain, what happened there?

JAN LOURENS: What happened is, I met the man, by the name of Trevor, I was just introduced - I was told that his name is Trevor, and I met him as Trevor.  We went to a cottage that belonged, or that was rented by Dr Basson, just outside Ascot, that little place called Warfield.  I drove him there, and at the cottage I demonstrated to him how the mechanism worked.  I opened the vile, one of the vials, sucked the substance into the unit locked it into it's - it had a safety lock mechanism.  I somewhere spilled some of the substance on my hand and I don't know how it happened, but I wiped my mouth and I lost consciousness very quickly.  There was a bathroom, I recall going into the bathroom, and I recall there being a bottle of Dettol, which I drank.  Again, in hindsight, I have absolutely no idea why I drank the Dettol.  At that stage, I to a large extent lost sight, and of course the Dettol induced a lot of vomiting etc, etc, and I woke up a period later.

MR VALLY: This item that you were asked to transfer, can you describe it to us?