JOHANNESBURG, (AP) South Africa – Witnesses have talked of creating poisoned chocolates and clothes, lacing a letter with anthrax and releasing cholera in the water supply at a refugee camp.
Wouter Basson, the so-called “Dr. Death,” takes the stand Monday to face questions about the chemical and biological warfare program he headed under South Africa’s apartheid regime.
It will be the first testimony by Dr. Basson, whose 21-month-old trial on charges of murder, fraud and drug trafficking has reminded South Africans of the horrors of apartheid.
Testimony has included accounts of salmonella sugar and an experiment where naked black people were smeared with a gel to test whether it could kill – and allegedly injected with fatal doses of muscle relaxants and dumped in the ocean when it didn’t.
As the head of the secret program that allegedly searched for ways to kill black enemies of the state during apartheid, Dr. Basson, a cardiologist, traveled the world under false identities to gather information, funds and materials. Prosecutors say he supported a luxurious lifestyle by siphoning state money from companies set up to hide the operations.
Dr. Basson angered many South Africans when he refused to apply for amnesty from the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which would have required him to tell all in public hearings. His trial now is seen as a symbol of what happens to those who ignored the commission’s effort to find out the truth about apartheid-era crimes.
“The Basson case demonstrates very clearly what the nature of the apartheid state was … a criminal state that was involved in really major schemes of mass and serious violations of human rights,” said Shadrack Gutto, a lawyer at the Center for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Dr. Basson, who has pleaded innocent to all charges, will not talk to the media, his attorney Jaap Cillier said.
The presiding judge dropped 15 of 61 charges last month without explanation, including allegations that Dr. Basson tried to kill the Rev. Frank Chikane by poisoning his clothes. Mr. Chikane is now President Thabo Mbeki’s chief of staff.
Dr. Basson was also cleared of the gel-smearing killings, but he still faces 13 murder charges.
The Pretoria High Court was evacuated several times during the trial after anonymous callers threatened to blow up the court if the case was not adjourned.
Journalists beset the trial as it opened in October 1999, but public interest quickly faded as lawyers began arguing about the complex web of front companies and international links that hid Dr. Basson’s alleged fraud.
The trial attracts only occasional attention, such as when bacteriologist Mike Odendaal testified last year that he had freeze-dried HIV-infected blood for use against enemies as part of Dr. Basson’s program.
Dr. Basson has remained calm throughout the trial, said Marlene Burger, who is observing the trial for the Center for Conflict Resolution.
“He shows no emotion of any kind. He and his legal team are very arrogantly confident that he will be acquitted,” she said.
That Dr. Basson, who rose quickly in military ranks, became such a key figure demonstrates how the apartheid system was run by normal people persuaded by a perverted idea, Mr. Gutto said.
“The apartheid state really used very normal ordinary professionals with otherwise good standing from an academic-intellectual level,” Mr. Gutto said. “It was not a system that was really run by sick people. These were normal people.”
Seeing democracy approaching, F.W. de Klerk – the last apartheid president – forced Dr. Basson to retire in 1992, but Dr. Basson was rehired during Nelson Mandela’s presidency. The new government said it had to rehire Dr. Basson to prevent his knowledge from ending up in the wrong hands.
But his comfortable life began to crumble when he was arrested in 1997 for allegedly selling the drug Ecstasy to a police informant. Dr. Basson’s program allegedly manufactured large quantities of street drugs, allegedly for crowd control.
Investigators found documents in Dr. Basson’s home detailing the chemical and biological warfare project known as Project Coast.
The find led to Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings on the project and many of the charges against Dr. Basson.
Dr. Basson, who is free on bail, continued to practice medicine at a government hospital until May, when he was forced to retire.
Prosecuting and defending Dr. Basson is likely to cost South Africa more than the $5.6 million that he is accused of pilfering, Ms. Burger said, adding that the trial is worth any price.
