Pretoria | Saturday
SOUTH African troops were used as guinea pigs in 1989 to test the effects of tear gas and the drug Mandrax, apartheid chemical warfare mastermind Wouter Basson claimed on Friday.
Basson (51) told the Pretoria High Court that troops were used as “the rabbits that inhaled the gas” as part of research for Project Coast, codename for the apartheid government’s chemical warfare programme.
He said “limited” tests were conducted by the police, who wanted to use tear gas and Mandrax, a potent narcotic drug, for crowd control.
Special task force used as rabbits that inhaled the gas The tests were carried out on special task force troops who had consented to the experiment, he added.
“The police insisted on those tests, because they would have used it for crowd control. It was under the control of General Lothar Neethling (former forensics chief of the police),” he said.
The heart surgeon, dubbed “Dr Death” for his allegedly lethal experiments, is facing 46 charges ranging from murder and fraud to drug offences relating to his covert work for the former white regime.
He told the court that the troops on whom the substances were tested displayed side-effects, some of them becoming violent for days after the tests.
Basson also testified that he tried to obtain vast quantities of drugs from overseas in the early 1990s at the instruction of politicians and senior military staff.
“The politicians and defence force wanted to do it. I only acted as agent,” he said.
He said his sources in East Germany and Libya and in various foreign intelligence services put him in touch with drug dealers who supplied him.
“My Libyan and East German principals, the English, Russians and Swiss intelligence services — I contacted every source I knew in the world,” he said.
In mid-1992, Basson said, he bought 80 kilograms of cocaine from a military intelligence officer in Peru for $250 000 and smuggled it into South Africa in a shipment of bananas with the help of the police.
“I did not have a permit for the importation of the cocaine, but General Neethling at the police knew about it. Some of the cocaine was even tested for purity at the police’s forensic laboratory,” he said.
Since taking the stand last month for the first time in a trial that began almost two years ago, Basson has claimed that he secretly bought military equipment from companies in Libya, East Germany and the Soviet Union. – AFP
ZA*NOW:
Basson took part in interrogation February 28, 2001
Basson back in the dock January 31, 2001
Basson seeks acquittal on 61 charges March 14, 2001