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

JAN LOURENS: Mr Vally, I must tell you this, I don't have a good recall, I can't recall whether it was a screwdriver or a needled unit, but it was one of the two.  I don't have a very good recall of that particular day and that incident, but it was definitely a hand-held unit, and it was either a screwdriver or needled.  I've thought about it, trying to recall the memory, and one of the issues that I can't recall, you know, for example I can remember the vile was a glass vile, and it's a smallish vile, and if you have to such up the liquid with the average screwdriver unit that was in front of you it would be difficult, so I assumed it to have been a needled unit?

MR VALLY: Was it an item manufactured at ...(intervention)

JAN LOURENS: By Phil Morgan, yes.

MR VALLY: Yes.  Just to go back very briefly, who were the Directors of Systems Research and Development, SRD?

JAN LOURENS: It was myself, a man by the name of Bernard Zimmer, based is Luxembourg, a man by the name of Charles van Remoortrere, they'd been working with me quite closely on the acquisition of materials from Europe, but it changed subsequently when I left.

MR VALLY: Were these all South Africans?

JAN LOURENS: No, Mr Zimmer is a - both Mr Zimmer and Van Remoortrere are Belgian citizens?

MR VALLY: Were they aware of the screwdriver project?

JAN LOURENS: Absolutely not.

MR VALLY: Alright, after your delivery of the screwdriver, did you have any other mission in Britain, or did you return to South Africa?

JAN LOURENS: I returned, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And did you report this?

JAN LOURENS: I reported it to both Dr Basson and Dr Mijburgh, and the reaction was one great scepticism about my story and their response to it was that it was highly unlikely that even if I had only a drop in my mouth that I would have lived, and we never discussed it again.  Not that particular incidence, the poisoning of myself, no.

MR VALLY: Did you ever see experiments on animals carried out with any of these screwdrivers?

JAN LOURENS: No.

MR VALLY: Were any reports ever made to you on experiments?

JAN LOURENS: No, never.  Not written reports, James Davies and I had discussions about the equipment, but written reports, never.  It was never made available to me.

MR VALLY: Did Dr James Davies ever tell you that this had been used on animals to test it's effectiveness, or whatever?

JAN LOURENS: Well, he - what he said to me was that they had evaluated the mechanism and you know, we never discussed it in detail in terms of what the evaluation meant, whether it was an animal, or whatever the case may be, they had used different models at different stages, so no, the details was not discussed with me, but there was an evaluation.  I was aware of the fact that there had been an evaluation, yes.

MR VALLY: This evaluation, did it ever involve a discussion as to the effect that this weapon had had on a human-being?

JAN LOURENS: No.

MR VALLY: Are you aware of whether this was ever tested on any person?

JAN LOURENS: Not at all.

MR VALLY: Let's go back to SRD, can you advise us of what the further developments at SRD were?

JAN LOURENS: I was - I moved away from SRD.  The Chemical Defence Project had become a substantial project in terms of the number of sub-projects that we were running as scientists, etc, etc, and to the extent that we - it was necessary for us to move from our premises which was based in Randburg at that stage, we had to move into a bigger facility.  The project had developed to the extent that it was decided that I would carry on with the Chemical Defence Project, and at this stage Armscor had become involved in this project, and that Johnny Koertzen would remain involved with the other companies.

MR VALLY: Let's understand that when you carried - when you hived off from SRD with the Chemical Defence Project, you also went with the screwdriver project.

JAN LOURENS: I had remained responsible for the screwdriver project, yes.

MR VALLY: And who did you take with you?

JAN LOURENS: Nobody, nobody went with me.  Morgan stayed where he was, and the mechanism operated in the same that I would interface with Morgan, and Morgan would supply the stuff to me, and so the routine remained, but he, and quite frankly, I know that he moved out of the SRD facility with his equipment at some stage, his and Hetima's paths parted, but you know, I still phoned him up and he carried on doing the work.

MR VALLY: Besides the screwdriver facility that we're talking about, were there any other offensive items, weapons, or whatever that SRD were responsible for making?

JAN LOURENS: Not that I know of, no.  I at one stage received a - right at the end of my period, just before I left the organisation, I met with a man by the name of Joe Verster, who was the head of the CCB.  I was introduced to Joe by Dr Basson, and the reason for the introduction was, is that the two of us would have started to work closely together.  I met Joe only once, subsequently I was introduced to a man by the name of Danie Wahl who was Joe's second-in-charge, and at one of the meetings, which was the second or third meeting, Danie gave me a number of parcels.  There was a number of sheet explosives, which is basically it looks like a piece of cardboard, there was a number of letter-bomb mechanisms, there was two boxes of washing powder, OMO washing powder that had an explosive mechanism packed into them, and I was asked/told to keep the equipment in a place of safekeeping, but this didn't come from Phil Morgan, this didn't come from SRD, it came from another source, but that had been my only interface in terms of other weapons.

MR VALLY: These items, so there were the screwdrivers, there were two OMO washing powder boxes, with explosives in them already?

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: And a triggering mechanism?

JAN LOURENS: It was separate, it was - the trigger - was literally just a box of triggering mechanisms, yes.

MR VALLY: I see.

JAN LOURENS: But the boxes, the soap boxes were - had the explosives, they were primed, they were, you know, ready for use.

MR VALLY: Why were they left with you?

JAN LOURENS: I have no idea.  It was left with me at the time, you know, the discussion that I had with Danie Wahl, and at that stage the situation was that we were going to work quite closely together in the future, and the stuff was given to me, and I left quite soon thereafter, so there may have been a particular reason for this, or a particular project to which I had not been exposed, but I was never briefed at that time of what it was for.

MR VALLY: Amongst the items dug up, it looks like a few pieces of rusted metal, was this item - these pieces here, can you just briefly tell us what that was?

JAN LOURENS: That's a letter-bomb mechanism.  That's a mechanism that is basically used, it contains a cap, it's triggered, it's a mechanical device.  It's attached to an explosive, it's packed into a letter, and as the letter is opened, the mechanical device is triggered and the bomb explodes.

MR VALLY: And the explosive material would be this flat sheet ...(intervention)

JAN LOURENS: The flat sheet, yes.

MR VALLY: I don't know if you are aware of these photos, I know that ...(intervention)

JAN LOURENS: Yes, yes, that is the photo of the flat sheets.

MR VALLY: These flat sheets?

JAN LOURENS: Absolutely.

MR VALLY: They would look like the back of your exam pad?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, it's slightly thicker, Mr Vally, but it looks like the back of an exam pad, yes.  It looks like a floor tile, you know the sort of square floor tiles, it looks like those square floor tiles.

MR VALLY: It was just left with you by Danie Wahl without indicating to you what it was for?

JAN LOURENS: No, it wasn't indicated to me at all what the usage was going to be for.

MR VALLY: Are you aware of any of these letter-bomb mechanisms being used?