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

JAN LOURENS: Yes, very briefly, I'll give you an overview of what we ended up eventually, not what we started with, the areas of technology that we were looking at was firstly, protection of the body, that being boots an over-boot and a textile for a chemical suite.  Secondly, would have been the protection of the respiratory tract, in other words, gas masks.  We looked at detection devices and the detection technology we separated into two groups, one being proximity protection, and one being long distance detection, and the technologies between the two was very very different.  And then we looked at test methods, quality control methods and test methods to be able to verify quality of these products being manufactured.
 Now, the process of verification in our case was one of actually testing the protective clothing with the test substance, and the test substance was chemical warfare substances.  So we had the ability to manufacture chemical warfare substances across the total spectrum on a very small scale, small scale being 1 - 5 millilitres.  Oh, and then of course the last area which I neglected to mention, was filtration media.  Filtration media, the key to filtering chemical substances from air is a product called activated carbon, and this activated carbon is impregnated with specific metals to be able to selectively remove these chemical warfare agents, and that was a big project for us.

MR VALLY: Were you ever given directions as to certain projects that you had to complete, or follow up?

JAN LOURENS: I was not given formal directions in the sense of being briefed of the strategic direction that we should pursue, it was really we worked from scratch, it was like starting a new research project for a doctorate, it was really working from scratch.  We aligned our processes from time to time with Dr Basson, but really that would have been once or twice a year, no more than that.

MR VALLY: Was there anything specific that Dr Basson asked you to look into or research - prepare research on?

JAN LOURENS: As far as the defensive capability is concerned, no.  What did, however, happened in this era, was that the company SRD developed into, or branched out into two other areas.  One was Dr Basson needed an ability in terms of ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Sorry, Dr Lourens, just to warn you that if you do want to talk to your lawyer, switch your mike off, because it is picked up through the headphones.

JAN LOURENS: Okay, no, that's find, I was just looking for a word, so it's no problem.
 Surveillance equipment, you know electronic surveillance equipment.  So, we developed a specific ability to develop surveillance equipment and counter-surveillance equipment.

MR VALLY: Was this at the request of Dr Basson?

JAN LOURENS: It was a specific request of Dr Basson, yes.  And then, what happened as well, is I was requested in this time to accommodate two individuals in our little company.  Accommodate, being giving them a place to work, and these were two gentlemen that - I was introduced to the one by via General Lothar Neethling, and the other one by Dr Basson, and their requirement was for a mechanical workshop, which was set up in our facility.

MR VALLY: I'll come back to that in a short while.  Since you were financed via Infladel, we assume that that was money from the South African Medical Services,

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: Did they in any way supervise your work?

JAN LOURENS: Well, they didn't supervise my work in terms of having regular project meetings, or whatever the case may be, the quality control of the project was done via their representative, which was at that stage Dr Willie Basson.
As the project grew, and as the project ran for a number of years, the control mechanism became a lot better, became much more intimate and the extent to which South African Medical Services interfaced with us became a true working relationship, for example, at the end of the project, or when I left the project in the early '90's, there was a strong SAMS team working with us on a weekly/monthly basis discussing the projects, the development of the project, etc.  So by that time - but initially it didn't exist, but eventually it became a very very structured and a very orderly process, and all aspects thereof would have been monitored, whether it was equipment acquisition, whether it was the integrity of the science being performed, etc, and at that stage early '90's Armscor was involved, the project had been transferred from SAMS to Armscor, so we were running to the formal Armscor systems, if you want, which was totally controlled.

MR VALLY: Would you say that at all times that SAMS was aware of the work you were doing?

JAN LOURENS: Not necessarily SAMS, but SAMS and/or Dr Basson, yes.

MR VALLY: You're talking about Dr Willie Basson?

JAN LOURENS: No, Wouter Basson.

MR VALLY: Dr Wouter Basson?

JAN LOURENS: Yes, and can I perhaps just separate the issue here.  The surveillance equipment and the mechanical facility that existed within the then SRD was not known to Dr Willie Basson.  I reported in to Dr Willie Basson only as far as the chemical warfare defence project was concerned.  As far as the other two was concerned, I spoke to only Dr Wouter Basson.

MR VALLY: Let us briefly talk about the other two projects that were introduced into your company.  You mentioned one by Dr Lothar Neethling and one by Dr Wouter Basson.

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: Can you tell us about these two?

JAN LOURENS: Basically what happened there is that I was introduced by Dr Neethling to a man by the name of Bart Hetima and what Bart Hetima did is he brought into the mechanical facility, if you want, we called is cubie laboratories, he brought into cubie laboratories a skill, an ability to pack aerosols and aerosol cans of various sizes and the focus was at that stage, packing teargas for use by the security forces, primarily the South African Police, into these aerosol cans.  The other individual that ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Sorry, who had introduced Mr Bart Hetima to you?

JAN LOURENS: General Neethling.

MR VALLY: General Neethling.

JAN LOURENS: With of course the consent of Dr Basson, I mean there was a close relationship between Dr Basson and General Neethling, so it was ...(intervention)

MR VALLY: Did they ever see you jointly, Dr Lothar Neethling and Dr Wouter Basson?

JAN LOURENS: Did I see them jointly?

MR VALLY: Yes, did they ever come and see you jointly?

JAN LOURENS: No, no, they - without exaggeration, if Dr Basson was at any of the premises that I occupied more than three or four times, it would have been a lot, and with General Neethling, no more that twice, although I must say since I saw them at their premises regularly, yes.

MR VALLY: How often did you see Dr Wouter Basson and Dr Lothar Neethling?

JAN LOURENS: It varied - it varied as a function of Dr Basson's availability.  It was not unusual for Dr Basson to be away for extended periods of time, so really, it wasn't a regular meeting.  General Neethling, I at one stage saw him regularly, once every two weeks, but on a completely different level.  It was quite frankly a strange sort of meeting process in the sense that it was a social visit.  He partook in the formal research meetings two or three times, and then it died down, and then his participation stopped, and he didn't - that's now the chemical warfare defence side, and otherwise I saw him from time to time, and it was really, we were having a coffee together or drinking a whisky together, or whatever the case may be, but it was, it wasn't an active technical interface at any stage.

MR VALLY: Let's talk about these two aspects, cubie labs as well as the electronics aspect.

JAN LOURENS: Yes.

MR VALLY: Dr Lothar Neethling introduced Bart Hetima to you and his special capabilities were packing aerosol cans.

JAN LOURENS: That's true.