Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-09

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Well MDMA Hydrochloride is commonly known as Ecstasy.  I was relatively reluctant to develop Ecstasy for him for the simple reason that it was, I told him that is a drug 1 scheduled in the United States and a drug of abuse but he insisted upon this.
 I went so far as, at that stage I was also promoted to being Director of Research at Delta G and Mr Sybrand van der Spuy had joined Delta G at that stage as a Technical Director.  Doctor Mijburgh told me that he had obtained an official order from the Surgeon General for this compound and that it was envisaged that it would be used as potential incapacitant.  So in order to try and remain on the legal side where this was concerned, I and Mr van der Spuy actually went to see Doctor Lothar Neethling in this regard.  We had a discussion with Neethling concerning this.  
 Neethling was, during that meeting, very non-committal concerning this so-called Baxol Project, which was MDMA Hydrochloride but he started arguing, he asked me what chemistry I envisaged and so on and we argued about the chemistry and from our discussion I deduced that we had his tacit approval although he didn't want to commit himself to this project.
 I then went back and eventually developed quite a novel process for making MDMA Hydrochloride.  This was implemented on plant scale and materials, the pure materials, and it was very high purity, it was 99.5% plus pure material, was delivered by myself over a period from the 4th of February 1992 to about the 5th of January 1993, to Doctor Mijburgh's offices at Henopsmeer, that is Medchem Consolidated Investments.
 Apparently the delivery notes were made out to Kowolsky International.  The Finance Department had done that sort of thing so I'm not sure why it was made out to Kowolsky International.  I heard that Doctor Mijburgh was also involved with Kowolsky International and that he was part owner or involved as a Director there.

MR VALLY: Do you know what happened to this - first of all, what quantity of Ecstasy was delivered by you in this period between the 4th of February '92 and the 5th of February '93?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: 5th of January '93.

MR VALLY: 5th of January, I beg your pardon.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I believe it was about 912 kilograms.

MR VALLY: Do you know what happened to the - sorry, in what form did you deliver this?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: This was delivered in pure crystalline form, white crystalline form, it was not in encapsulated form at all.  It was pure white crystalline material packed in white drums that could contain about 12 kilos at a time.

MR VALLY: And how did you deliver this?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I delivered it by car because they insisted that we keep a high confidentiality about this project, so they didn't want other people involved except on one case where we had quite a lot, I think it was about 200 kilograms where I used transport, a bakkie from Delta G and at that stage I think that Mr Philip Mouton helped me to transport the material there and pack it into a sub-basement store.

MR VALLY: What were you told that this Ecstasy was for?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: I was told that it was to be - they just decided that it will be a good incapacitant, so I actually said to Doctor Mijburgh: "You know Doc, I don't want to love my enemy if I want to use an incapacitant on him.  And as far as I know where the pharmacology of MDMA is concerned is that it enhances interpersonal communication and empathy and I would not like to kiss my enemy but I would rather work on his central nervous system and disorientate him to such an extent that he can't operate properly".

MR VALLY: And what was his reaction?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: He said that they have considered this to be a good potential incapacitant and that was that.

MR VALLY: Now what delivery mechanism was intended for this Ecstasy?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: They claimed that they would put it in some pyrotechnical mixture in the form of a gas grenade or something like that.  I've never been informed about the particulars of this.
 The only particulars where this is concerned was in the case of CR where I did do a number of pyrotechnical studies, working together with Swartklip Products where CR and CS was concerned.  
 We did develop a pyrotechnical analysis process for these people in the case of CR but we've never worked - and CS, but we've never worked on pyrotechnical processes for any of the other so-called incapacitants that was mentioned in these TRC documents that you gave me.  Neither do I know of a thousand kilograms of BZ that was made.

MR VALLY: Talking about what you said just now relating to CR gas, since Delta G was the chemical laboratory surely you would be involved in delivery systems in terms of how the incapacitant like CR gas was to be effectively distributed to have the most effect.

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: We were never given that brief at all.  They said there were other departments in the Army that would handle that side of the affairs because Swartklip assisted and I don't know what other departments existed within the Army that had knowledge about dissemination techniques and so on.  We never specialised or read up about dissemination techniques where this is concerned, no.

MR VALLY: Did you determine what happened to that 912 kilograms of Ecstasy which you delivered?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No, what it did lead to was to a lot of grief for me in this case because at a certain stage, I believe it was in '92, '93, Medchem Pharmaceuticals which is one of the front companies in Medchem Consolidated Investments rented some space from one of our plants, Plant 3 there, and a Mr Steven Beukes who was a Managing Director of this company actually conducted his business there, either amongst other things, developed a process for making Chloroquine Sulphate which is an anti-malarial.
 And I know that he formulated these capsules in that designated area but nobody ever came into that building and we simply ignored it.  And when Mr Beukes moved out of there, Mr Pithey and myself went on an inspection there and we came upon a bottle with a mixture of capsules.  
 I took a handful of these meaning to ask Mr Beukes why he had left actives there, put it in a little bottle and early in February 1997 police came to my office and found these capsules there and arrested me for the possession of Ecstasy.  This case was subsequently withdrawn against me on the 5th of May.

MR VALLY: Now Mr Beukes that you referred to, what was his position?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: He was Managing Director of Medchem Pharmaceuticals and from the record from the Medical Control Council I could deduce that he was appointed around September 1990 as Managing Director or Medchem Pharmaceuticals.

MR VALLY: I'll come back to Mr Beukes in a short while.  So there were facilities at Delta G for the encapsulating of substances?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Not at Delta G, at Medchem Pharmaceuticals.

MR VALLY: I see, sorry.  And did you have regular contact with Medchem Pharmaceuticals?  Is was the holding company of Delta G?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: Medchem Consolidated Investments was the holding company of Delta G.  Medchem Pharmaceuticals was one of the sub-companies in this holding company.

MR VALLY: And did you regularly deliver items to Medchem Pharmaceuticals?

JOHANNES MATTEUS KOEKEMOER: No.  We were informed by a circular in November 1992 by Doctor Mijburgh, that's how I came to know about this whole set-up of Medchem Consolidated Investments, that these companies, that was Medchem Consolidated Investments consisted of Delta G Scientific, Medchem Pharmaceuticals, Lifestyle Management Services and Pro Technique at that stage.  That was in November 1992.

MR VALLY: So you were aware that at least some of this Ecstasy was in fact encapsulated?