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

MR CHASKALSON: And when we say Doctor Basson, would it be possible for Doctor Basson possibly to send a delegate of his own to Doctor Immelman and ask Doctor Immelman to do something?

MR SWANEPOEL: I cannot speculate about that, I doubt it.

MR CHASKALSON: So in terms of control of what was going on at your company in terms of the actual physical work that was being done there you had zero knowledge, zero control, zero interest?

MR SWANEPOEL: I had my specialists there to do that job, yes.

MR CHASKALSON: Did you specialists ever report to you?

MR SWANEPOEL: Yes, in terms of, as I said the financial implications and the time implications.

MR CHASKALSON: Did your specialists ever report to you about the research that they conducted?

MR SWANEPOEL: Not for me, no.

MR CHASKALSON: So in terms of all of the instructions that were given from the SADF, presumably from Doctor Basson to your company, the nature of the work that was given to your company you had zero knowledge, you heard nothing about it and you had no interest in it?

MR SWANEPOEL: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Swanepoel, I'm not interfering with your rights, I just want to indicate that your replies, notwithstanding the provision of Section 31, are of a nature that you are committing yourself to a version ...[intervention]

MR SWANEPOEL: I can't hear you Mr Chairman.  Must I put one of these on?

CHAIRPERSON: You are committing yourself to a version.  I assume that that speaks for itself but I have a duty to indicate to you that the answers that you are giving are such that you are giving a version which given under oath is a version that you reconciled yourself is a version that you want to put.
 I'm not prejudging the nature of your replies, I'm simply saying we will come to these questions.  We may put the same question for our own quantification and if you are reconciled that it is the sort of version that you put across then it is so.

MR SWANEPOEL: Mr Chairman, but then I must ask you what you want me to say?

CHAIRPERSON: I'm not wanting you to say anything, I'm wanting you to speak the truth.  I want you to ...[intervention]

MR SWANEPOEL: Mr Chairman, that is what I am doing.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

MR SWANEPOEL: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Chaskalson?

MR CHASKALSON: Thank you.
 Mr Swanepoel, it's been drawn to my attention that my previous question, when I asked about any reporting, you had said: "not formally".  Did you have any knowledge whatsoever be it formal or informal?

MR SWANEPOEL: Of the Chemical Biological, the operational aspects? ...[intervention]

MR CHASKALSON: Of the nature of the research being done.

MR SWANEPOEL: Right Mr Chairman, I understand what you're meaning.  Yes, in terms of the research, the biological and chemical agents, yes, I had heard of what was used, I heard common names being mentioned which meant nothing to me.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell me who you heard things from?

MR SWANEPOEL: Doctor Andre Immelman mostly.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell me what sort of things you heard?

MR SWANEPOEL: It was about the type of agents they're researching.  I've heard names that I have seen in these documents but I couldn't place them in any relevance in any research.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell us in what context these discussions took place?

MR SWANEPOEL: It wasn't discussions on the technical aspects of the research whatsoever, it was in terms of mentioning a name and then the talking about the financial aspects, the progress in terms of time and money.

MR CHASKALSON: So we might have a project which deals with Botulism for instance and so the name Botulism would be mentioned and then he would say: "Please give me a great deal of money"?

MR SWANEPOEL: No, he would do a budget on that project which would go through the Research Committees.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you clarify for me, during what discussions with Doctor Immelman you would have heard about names of products, I'm not understanding you fully.

MR SWANEPOEL: I understand that we had various management levels of meetings.  We had a Management Meeting as well as a Board Meeting.  At the Management Meetings we spoke about the day to day management of the company.  These were names that were mentioned of which no specific reports were given but about the progress in general.
 In the discussions amongst the researchers I heard names and the research which was done about the things but specifically about the course of it, which context it was discussed I cannot say.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you tell me why when you joined the company you put Lab Services and Research and Development which were previously being run by Doctor Immelman and Doctor van Rensburg into one single section?

MR SWANEPOEL: It happened a very long time ago, I cannot specifically remember the motivation for this restructuring but we wanted to make the organisation more streamlined and these were the main reasons, more streamlined and more functional.  These were the reason why we made these structural changes.

MR CHASKALSON: More functional or an attempt to get a person who you were not certain you could control, out of the lib?

MR SWANEPOEL: I have no idea what you mean.

MR CHASKALSON: I'll return to this point in a moment.   Mr Chair, if you could just bear with me one moment, I've got an indication that a colleague would like to say something to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Very well Mr Chaskalson.  Doctor Randera?

UNKNOWN: Doctor Swanepoel, may I then just ask a question.  This position that you took as the MD of the company and the answers that you've given to Mr Chaskalson that you didn't involve yourself in the actual questioning of what the research was all about, was this on this need to know basis that your organisations seemed to work on because earlier on you told us that you were a dentist?

MR SWANEPOEL: That's correct.

UNKNOWN: Now as a dentist you see a research document that says: "We are making cultures on Salmonella tifi(?)" now that's part of your training so you would know what Salmonella tifi is and what it's being produced for.  And if we just ask in terms of the product itself because Doctor Odendal said to us yesterday that cultures were produced, that was the end product of what he was involved in.
 Now did you not ask what that was for and where it was going to because I understand that once the culture was made there were no tests being done at your laboratories, that was done somewhere else.  Did you ever ask yourself what is going on with these cultures that have potential danger to society?

MR SWANEPOEL: We can bring this in context with what I believe about the company and its proceedings or activities and this was in the context of the evaluation of biological and chemical agents in order to be able to diagnose and trace and work out methods of treatment, yes.

UNKNOWN: I'm still not clear.  We have a product, the product let us say is a culture, if we just Doctor Odendal's explanation yesterday that 30mls say of - just for the sake of discussion, some analatifi(?) culture was produced, as the MD of the company, as the person who overseas everything, because that's the impression you're giving us, that was your role there.

MR SWANEPOEL: Correct.

UNKNOWN: What was the next stage?  I understand this culture went into Doctor Immelmann's fridge - and let me tell you I find that astonishing, that a company that spent millions of rands, once a product was produced went into a bar fridge as was told to us yesterday, in the safe of Doctor Immelman.  What actually happened to the product beyond that or was that not your role, was it not a question what happened to that?  Was it sold to somebody, was it ...