MARIETTE LE ROUX, Pretoria | Thursday
APARTHEID chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson appeared relaxed on Thursday as the Pretoria High Court started delivering judgment in his trial on charges including murder, fraud and the possession of drugs.
Judge Willie Hartzenberg started reading extracts from his 1400-page judgment by 8.30am.
By tea-time he had not made any pronouncement on whether Basson was guilty of any of the 67 charges he faces, but was still reading a summary of the nearly three years of testimony before the court.
Several prominent figures from the apartheid era were seen in the full courtroom.
They included former defence minister Magnus Malan and retired chief of the old SA Defence Force (SADF) Constand Viljoen, who is also the previous leader of the Freedom Front. Former surgeon-general Niel Knobel was present too.
Cameras were allowed in court and the SABC broadcast part of the proceedings live.
Basson, the head of the SADF’s chemical and biological warfare programme in the 1980s and early 1990s, has pleaded not guilty on all the charges against him. Eighteen of the counts relate to murder, conspiracy, assault and intimidation, 24 to theft and fraud involving close to R46-million, and three to the possession of Ecstacy.
Basson initially faced 67 charges. Some were dropped in the earlier stages of the trial because they were found to be out of the jurisdiction of the court. Others fell away because of a lack of evidence.
The state has spent millions on investigating the case, with prosecutors and a forensic auditor who spent six years on his investigation travelling to several countries.
The SA National Defence Force, which pays for Basson’s defence team consisting of an attorney and two advocates, this week confirmed that the cost of his defence so far amounts to almost R10-million. – Sapa