OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday
A CHILLING account of how former SA Defence Force assassins killed South African soldiers regarded as a security risk and “hundreds” of Swapo detainees – using rubber hammers from OK Bazaars and tranquillisers and deadly muscle relaxants – has emerged in the trial of apartheid chemical expert Wouter Basson.
In spite of complaining in 1980 that he did not like his job and wanted a way out, former SADF assassin Johan Theron continued killing hundreds of detainees over the next seven years – including injecting people and throwing them into the sea – a former colleague, Dr Jan Coetzee, told the Pretoria High Court.
Coetzee said he had on occasion received inquiries from operators for something to silence detainees when they had to be brought over the border for questioning.
“The best equipment for that purpose was a rubber hammer. There were requests for drugs, but I never supplied anything like that. I always told them to go to the OK Bazaars for their rubber hammers,” Coetzee said.
Coetzee headed a clandestine Armscor affiliate known as EMLC Consultants and Manufacturers, which supplied equipment to Special Forces operators. He denied that EMLC had ever supplied any tranquilisers or deadly substances.
Although he had obtained tranquilising darts from the Parks Board, he had not supplied any of them to Theron, he said. Theron claimed he received a tranquilising dart from EMLC for one of his first operations, and thereafter regularly received tranquilisers and deadly muscle relaxants from Basson, which he used to kill “hundreds” of Swapo detainees and also own forces that were regarded as a security risk.
Retired SADF Colonel Sybie van der Spuy testified that he was managing director of EMLC from November 1980 until the company was closed down in 1992 because of political pressure.
On his arrival, there had been a room containing chemicals and a box with clothing. He was warned not to touch the underpants in the box, because it would kill him if he put it on. Van der Spuy, who did not want anything to do with the chemical side of the SADF’s operations, gave instructions that the chemicals and clothing should be destroyed.
According to Van der Spuy he was “firmly in control” of EMLC, and the company had not worked with chemical or toxic substances in his time there.
He later joined another SADF front company, Delta G Scientific, at Basson’s request to “flush out” a cartel of managers who were suspected of enriching themselves.
A high ranking former counter-intelligence officer, General Reinderd Verbeeck, testified that he had known very little of Project Coast, apart from its existence and goal, which was to create an offensive and defensive chemical and biological warfare capability for South Africa.
Verbeeck denied being present at a meeting in the 1980s where it was decided to step up the SADF’s acquisition of substances and specialised equipment in the light of the sanction campaign.
He conceded that a believable front would have been vital for Basson’s activities and that this could have included always travelling first class. He also agreed that any SADF monies used for the project would have had to be disguised in such a way as to be untraceable.
When asked about Theron, Verbeeck said he had not known the intelligence officer very well, although he suspected that “a bad work record” might have had to do something with the fact that Theron was not promoted for 15 years.
Verbeeck agreed that Coast – which was one of ten top secret operations of the SADF in the 1980s and early 1990s – was unique and that running it would have been a “unique situation”.
Basson has denied guilt on 61 charges ranging from murder to attempted murder, conspiracy, fraud and drug trafficking.